CHAPTER ONE

A JOURNEY TO THE DOLOMITES

I had seen all the rushes of the film, but it was the first time I had sat through the full cut version. The rushes had been pure routine, short slashes of film to be viewed critically for alterations and cuts. They had meant no more to me than pages torn at random from a manuscript. They were strips of celluloid to be coldbloodedly hammered into shape.

But this was different — to sit there in the dark of the Studio theatre and have the whole grim story retold on the screen. It wasn't, of course, exactly the way it had happened. It couldn't be. No audience would have stood for it told that way. We had twisted it about a good deal to make a straight story of it. But it was all there, so that, with a bag of sticky sweets and hot hands clasped in the dark, any one with a couple of bob to spare could lose themselves for an hour and twenty-three minutes and live in the atmosphere of tension and fear in which we had lived in that chalet in the heart of the Dolomites.

The film opened with an approaching shot of the chalet from the slittovia, just as I had seen it that first time. And as the cable sleigh neared the chalet, I lost all critical sense in my absorption in the story. For I knew what the inside of the hut would look like before the camera planed in through the window. I knew who would be there and what they would be saying. I sat and lived the story all over again.

You may say — how could I help knowing who would be there and what they would be saying since I had written the script? That is true. But it is one thing to make up a story; quite another to have written of things that actually happened — written with the dead, so to speak, looking over my shoulder. It was Engles' idea — to film a thriller that had really happened. He it was who had introduced me to the characters, helped to set the stage and had had a large part in directing the events of the story. He had even given me the title — typed it out in black and white with fingers already grown stiff and cold. The fact that I had written the script and another man had directed the film, did not prevent it from seeming somehow entirely his work.

Thus, to me, the final version had something of a nightmare quality. And as the story I knew so well unfolded, each character on the screen transformed itself in the sockets of my brain and took on new features — features I had known. It was not the actors playing their parts that I saw, but the real people as they had once been. It was like a parade of ghosts. So many of them were dead. And I had come so near to death myself out there on the cold snow slopes below Monte Cristallo.

The story was so vivid in my mind. I did not need thousands of feet of film made at a cost of over £100,000 to recall it. Let the dead lie buried, not march like pale spectres out of a strip of celluloid, mouthing words they had once uttered when they were flesh and blood. It was unnatural and somehow rather horrible to sit there in a comfortable seat and see the whole thing neatly tied up with box office ticket ribbons ready for sale to the public.

This must sound a pretty strange opening to a story that has nothing of ghosts in it, but which tells of an ill-assorted group of people, of greed and violence in a strange setting. If I have begun at the wrong end, it is because it was after seeing the neat little parcel we had made of the film that I had the urge to tell the story exactly as it happened to me. I don't want to see the film again — ever. However big a success it is — and it has all the ingredients of success — I have seen all I want to see of it. Now I'll tell the story once and for all just as it happened. Then perhaps my mind will be exhausted with the telling of it and I shall be able to forget all about it.

Like most of the startling events in life, I stumbled into it quite by chance. It was the First of December — a grey, wet day that fitted my mood — and it was in a chemist's shop of all places. Derek Engles was standing at the dispensing counter, drinking a dark fizzy pick-me-up out of a beaker. He caught my eye over the rim of it and frowned. He always liked people to believe that drink had no effect on his constitution. He took liquor like most people take food. His brain worked best that way. Everything he did and said had to be whipped up, and drink was the stimulant. He never ate breakfast and cured his hangovers by secretly consuming aspirin, which he always carried about with him.

I don't know why he was in Shaftesbury Avenue that morning. It was just one of those things that happen. Sometimes Fate puts on a kindly mask and shakes up the pieces so that the right ones meet at the right moment. This was one of those occasions.

They say that things always work out for the best. But people who make that statement are always lapped in smug security at the time. I agree that life is cumulative and that the threads of each defined period of a man's life are woven into the pattern. But it is not always possible to pick up the right thread just at the moment when you need it most. And I was feeling pretty desperate when I met Engles.

Before the war I had had a nice little family business — a local paper in Wiltshire. But that went under and when I had been overseas three years and became due for release, I found I had no job to go back to. I was longing to get back to Peggy and the kid, but we agreed there was nothing for it but to sign on for another year. Then a friend of mine suggested starting up a publishing business in Exeter. He asked me to join him in the venture. When I came out we put all we had into it. It lasted six months — the paper shortage and lack of capital were too much for us.

I wrote to everyone I knew — people I had known before the war and contacts I had made in the Army. I combed the 'Situations Vacant' columns in the papers. But there were too many of us in the same boat. I sent Peggy and Michael back to our cottage in Wiltshire and here I was in London in search of a job.

It was five years since I had seen London, and in the meantime I had been halfway round the world. I had run big towns in Italy and Austria. I had lived in the best hotels in Europe. I had had servants and transport. And that morning I stood in the rain in Piccadilly Circus, an unimportant molecule in the great flood of London, feeling alone and a little lost. I was excited and at the same time depressed. Excited, because London is an exciting place. From Westminster to the City you can climb dingy stairs to offices whose ramifications cover the entire living globe. Anything is possible in London. The whole world seems to be under your hand. If you have the right contact and are the right man for the job, London holds the key to every country in the world. But I was also depressed, for there is no city in which you can feel so small and lonely and lost as London, especially if you have no job.

But because I needed some toothpaste as well as a job, I strolled up Shaftesbury Avenue and walked into the first chemist's I saw. And there was Engles.

I had been his Battery Captain back in 1942. We had gone overseas together. But after Alamein, he had transferred to the Intelligence and I had taken the Battery into Italy and had finished up as a Town Major. He had been an exacting Battery Commander. He had broken my two predecessors and everyone had said that I wouldn't last six weeks. But I had. I had even enjoyed working with him. He had been brilliant, moody and erratic. But he had an exciting personality and terrific drive and energy when things were difficult. Now he was back in films and, according to the papers, his directing of K. M. Studios' latest production, The Three Tombstones, had put him right at the top.

He nodded casually at my greeting, put the empty beaker down on the counter and looked hard at me for a moment as I made my purchase.

'What are you doing now, Neil?' he asked at length. He had a quick abrupt way of speaking as though his tongue worked too slowly for his mind.

'I haven't been back very long,' I told him. I had heard him sneer at failure too often to let him know the truth.

'Demobilised?'

'Yes.'

'You've been in a long time, haven't you?'

'Yes. I signed on for an extra year.'

'A good-time Charlie, eh?' he jeered.

'I don't get you,' I said. But I knew what he meant. Living conditions had been pretty good at the end — much better than at home.

He gave a harsh laugh. 'You know very well what I mean. All the bright boys were getting out when I left nearly eighteen months ago. The only ones staying on, apart from the regulars, were the duds and the adventurers — and the good-time Charlies. That's what is wrong with our European administration. There's no real future in the job, so it doesn't appeal to the sort of men we ought to have out there. Well, which category do you put yourself in?'

'Of the three categories you mention,' I replied, 'I think I'd prefer to be classed among the adventurers.' My voice sounded sullen. I couldn't help it. I was angry. I wasn't going to tell him how I had hated signing on for that extra year, when I had seen so little of Peggy since we had been married and I had barely seen the kid since he was born. And I felt uncomfortable, too. In the old days I had managed to stand up to Engles; not because my personality was as strong as his, but because I knew my job. But to face up to his volatile and domineering personality now, when things were going badly, was too much. I wanted to rush out of that shop before he pried too deeply into my circumstances.

'And now you're back,' he said. 'Still running that tuppenny ha'penny little rag down in Wiltshire?'

'No, that went smash,' I told him.

His dark eyes were watching me closely. 'Then what are you doing now?'

'I started a small publishing house with a friend,' I replied. 'What about you — are you working on another film now?'

But he wasn't to be put off so easily. 'It needs a lot of money to start up in publishing these days,' he said, still watching me. 'A whole crop of them sprang up like mushrooms soon after the war. They're mostly in difficulties now.' He hesitated. Then suddenly he gave me a queer puckish smile. He could be charming. He could turn it on like a tap. He could also be a cruel, sneering devil. But suddenly, there was the well-remembered smile and I felt a great relief as I realised that, despite his hangover, it was to be charm this morning. 'I think you need a drink,' he said. 'I know I do after that filthy stuff.' And he took my arm and led me out of the shop. As we crossed the road, he said, 'Done any more writing, Neil? Those two one-act plays of yours I produced on the ship going out — they weren't bad, you know.'

'I wrote a play whilst I was in Austria,' I told him. 'But you know what the theatre has been like — nothing but musicals and revivals. Even established playwrights can't get a theatre. And anyway, I doubt if it was good enough.'

'You sound as miserable as hell,' he said. 'Life is fun. Don't take it so seriously. Something always turns up at the last moment. Do you want a job?'

I stopped then. I could have hit him. His unfailing instinct for a man's weakness had told him I hadn't got a job and he was going to enjoy my discomfort. He was ruthless, unscrupulous. How he hated failure! How he revelled in attacking any man at his weakest point! It was incredible how that Welsh intuition of his smelled out a man's weakness. 'Life may be fun,' I said angrily. 'But it isn't as funny as all that.'

'Come on to the pavement,' he said. 'It's a lot safer. So you think I'm not serious?'

'I think you're behaving stupidly,' I snapped back at him. I was goaded by the thought that I had worked with this man on terms of equality and now he was in a position to cast me crumbs for the amusement of watching my reactions.

He took my arm in a firm grip and steered me through the glass door of a long gin palace of a saloon bar. He ordered whiskies. 'Here's fun!' he said, and raised his glass mockingly at me. He was laughing. It showed in his eyes. 'You think I'm not serious, eh?" he said. 'I am, you know — quite serious. Do you want a job or not?'

I downed my whisky at a gulp and ordered another round. 'I don't want your charity or your sneers,' I said. I was feeling very bitter.

'My God! You're prickly,' he said. 'But then you always were. Did you ever know me charitable? I seem to remember you telling me — more than once — that I was the most ruthless person you had ever met. Just because I wouldn't stand incompetence. It's a strange thing, but just at the moment I can't think of any one I would rather have run into. But life's like that. If you want a job done, the right man always turns up at the last minute. There are only about a half-dozen men I met in the Army who would be right for a job I have in mind. And if they'd all applied for it in a bunch, I'd have picked on you without a moment's hesitation.' The build-up was obvious. But I began to be interested. Engles never bothered to build any one up unless he really wanted to make use of them. He gave me a sudden warm smile. 'You know — I'm quite serious, Neil. If you want a job, I'd be glad to have you work with me again.'

'What sort of a job is it?' I asked.

'Three months at Cortina in the Dolomites as a script writer for K.M. Studios,' he replied quickly. 'A hundred pounds a month and all expenses.'

I gasped. It was the chance of a lifetime and I had walked bang into it in a chemist's shop. But why me? 'What makes you think I can produce the sort of script you want?' I asked him.

'I don't want you to produce a script, I've got one already.'

'Then what in the world do you want me to do?'

He reacted immediately to my disappointment. He patted my shoulder. 'Three months in the finest skiing country in Europe isn't a bad offer,' he said.

'I know,' I said hastily. 'But I couldn't help being disappointed. You offer me a job as a script writer, and then you say you don't want a script. You know I always wanted to be a writer.'

'I didn't mean to disappoint you,' he said. 'Look, Neil. It's best to be frank with you. I don't think you could write the sort of film script I want. But if you do write one, I'll promise you this — I'll read it and if I can use it in preference to the one I've got, I will. That's fair, eh?'

'Very fair,' I agreed. 'Now, what do you really want me to do?'

'You speak Italian, don't you?' he asked.

'Enough to get around,' I replied.

'Good!' He smiled. 'Since you class yourself among the adventurers, you might find this quite amusing. On the other hand, it may be a complete wash-out. In which case you will have to be content with three months' holiday in the Dolomites. It's just a hunch I have about something. I can't follow it up myself. I'm finishing off my next film. What I need is somebody I can trust to hold a watching brief for me and keep me informed — somebody with a sense of responsibility and plenty of initiative. You're just the man.'

'Thanks for the build-up,' I said. I was becoming excited despite my previous disappointment. Engles' excitement was always infectious.

He laughed. 'That's not a build-up. You just happen to possess those qualities. You can also write, and that gives me a pretext for sending you out. Now — do you want the job?'

'Well, what is the job?' I asked him.

'For God's sake, Neil!' he cried. 'Do you want it or don't you?'

'Of course I do,' I replied. 'I need a job badly. But naturally I want to know what the job is. How else can I tell whether I can do it?'

'You should know me better,' he said in a quieter tone. 'I wouldn't be offering you the job if I didn't think you could do it. Now, are you going to take it or not?'

'I'd like to,' I said.

'Fine!' And he ordered another round before I was halfway through my own drink. 'Just a final,' he said, 'whilst I tell you what I want you to do. Then I must dash or I'll miss my train. Do you know Cortina?'

I shook my head. I knew of it, of course. We had taken it over as a leave centre for our troops at the end of the war.

'Doesn't matter,' he went on. 'I plan to do a film there. There's not enough movement in modern films. Too much of the play about them. That's why Westerns are so popular. The studios seem to think people go the cinema to listen. They don't. They go to watch. There's a colossal market waiting for a fast-moving ski picture. Plenty of spills and thrills. The world has gone crazy about sport — artificial excitement to replace the excitement of war. But I've got to convince my Studios first. I'm sending a fat, sluggish ape called Joe Wesson, who just happens to be a first-class cameraman, over to take some pictures that will convince K.M. Studios that I'm right. You'll go with him to do the script. That's just an excuse to get you the permit. I don't give a damn whether you write a script or not, but you'd better try. Joe Wesson will expect it. To everyone else but me you're there to write a script. You'll be on the Studios' pay-roll as a script writer. I'll fix that.'

He lit a cigarette. 'You'll stay at a place called Col da Varda,' he went on. 'It's about five miles north of Cortina. It's little more than a rifugio, but it's got bedrooms: I've booked accommodation for two already. You go up to the Passo Tre Croci and take a cable-sleigh — slittovia, the Ityes call them — up to the hut. Make a pretence of writing and watch everyone who comes up there. Particularly, watch for this girl.' He produced a photograph from his wallet and handed it tome.

It was a very faded and much-worn photograph of the head and undraped shoulders of a girl. It had been taken in Berlin and scrawled across the bottom was — 'Fur Heinrich, mein liebling — Carla.'

'She's Italian,' he said. I could see that. She had dark hair and eyes and a wide full mouth. There was something very animal about that face and the eyes had a glittering hardness. It reminded me of some of the pictures of girls I had seen in the Vice Squad's index of prostitutes shortly after the fall of Rome.

'Understand, I don't want you to do anything,' Engles continued. 'I just want you to keep your eyes open. I'm interested in the slittovia and the hut, the people who are staying there, regular visitors, anything unusual that happens. I'm not going to tell you anything about it. If you keep your eyes and ears open, you'll probably come to know as much about the business as I do. But, / don't want you to do anything. Send me a daily report. If there's anything startling, cable me at the Studios. Send your reports Air Mail. Is all that clear?'

'As mud,' I said.

He grinned. 'That's about as clear as I wanted it to be. See my secretary tomorrow. She'll fix everything for you.' He glanced at his watch and drained his drink. 'I'll just make it,' he said. 'It'll be a three months' engagement and, if my hunch turns out right, you might find yourself nicely set up. At worst you might produce a script I could use. You leave for Cortina the day after tomorrow.'

With that he clapped me on the back and hurried out, leaving me slightly bewildered, but feeling suddenly that the world was an exciting place and life worth living again. Here was a chance to write a film script handed me on a platter. I had several more drinks at that bar, savouring the excitement of the moment with the warmth of the whisky. If I wrote a script — and it were good enough — Engles, I knew, would keep his word. I did not spare much thought for the private assignment he had given me. I did not know then that it was to oust from my mind any thought of writing a script until I wrote of the actual events that occurred at Col da Varda.

When I got back to the cottage that night Peggy met me at the door and she saw at once that our luck had turned. Her face lit up. We laughed together over the strangeness of it all and went out to celebrate, spending money without thought for the first time in months, planning the script I should write. The fact that we were to be separated again didn't seem to matter. It was for a short time and we were people with a future if we could grasp hold of it.

So it was that, two days later, I found myself sharing a carriage with Joe Wesson. Engles' description of him as 'a fat, sluggish ape' was cruel, but not inappropriate. He had heavy features. The skin below the sockets of his eyes was dragged down by great pouches. His cheeks swept in ample folds to his splendid chins and flapped like dewlaps as he talked. He weighed, I should guess, over fifteen stone. He was, in fact, one of the most impressive figures I have ever seen and to watch him fitting himself into his sleeping berth was as good as a visit to the panda's cage at the London Zoo.

He was in a furious temper when he joined me on the platform at Victoria. He had a hangover and obviously hated travel. 'You're Neil Blair, are you?' he said. He was panting, but for all that he was quick enough on his feet. 'I'm Joe Wesson. We've been had for a couple of mugs, blast Engles' God-damned soul! Why couldn't he convince the Studios himself without sending us to shiver on a Dolomite, taking pictures and writing scripts?' He heaved his gear on to the rack. 'The Studios will do what he says anyway. He could just as well talk them into it. He's got a tongue, and 'tisn't as though it's rusty. But he must have the whole circus running around full of the same idea.' He fitted himself into a corner seat facing the engine and, as though to bear out Engles' theories, brought out a stack of Westerns, picked up the top one and settled himself to read.

He worked his way steadily down through that pile of Westerns as we crossed the Channel and the train rattled across France and through Switzerland — that is, when he wasn't taking on food or drink, both of which he did noisily and in large quantities, or when he wasn't sleeping, which he did even more noisily, snoring with a strange series of grunts that ended in a slight long-drawn-out whistle.

He didn't talk much. But once he leaned across in a 1C friendly way and said, 'New to the K.M. set-up, aren't you, old man?' He had a queer way of jerking his sentences out as though he were always short of breath. When I told him I was, he shook his head so that his cheeks quivered. 'Good firm when you're on top, but God help you when you're not. They're a hard lot. Can't afford to make a mistake with them. If you do—' he snapped his fingers expressively — 'you're finished. Engles is their big man at the moment. He may last one year. He may last five. Worked with him before?'

I told him what my previous association with Engles was. 'Ah!' he said. 'Then you probably know him better than I do. Get to know men when you live with them like that. He can be charming. And then again he can be a devil. Most ruthless director I ever worked with. If a star doesn't toe the line, they're out — he'll get a new star or make one. That's how Lyn Barin jumped to fame in The Three Tombstones. The original star was Betty Carew. She threw a fit of temperament — wanted scenes played her own way. Engles chucked her off the set. His language was a poem in Technicolor. Next day he had the Barin girl there. No one had ever heard of her. And he made her a star right there on the set. He got the acting he wanted and the film was the better for it. Betty Carew had done good work for K.M. But she's washed up now.' He heaved a sigh. 'Why you blokes ever come out of the Army, God knows! You're safe there. Nobody can throw you out unless you do something stupid.' Then he suddenly smiled. His smile was quite delightful. His face, for all its loose flesh, was strangely expressive. 'Still, I admit I wouldn't change places with 'em. Life's a fight anyway. There's no fun in knowing you're safe whether your work is good or bad.' And he returned with a deep sigh of contentment to his Westerns.

It was dark and the snow was falling when we arrived at Cortina. Once out of the lights of the station our sense of pleasure at having finished the journey was damped by the blanket of steadily falling snow. The soft sound of it was audible in the still night. It hid the lights of the little town and muffled the chained wheels of the hotel bus.

Cortina is like all winter sports' resorts. It is a veneer of civilisation's luxuries planted by hotel-keepers in the heart of a wild country of forests, snow and jagged peaks. Because of the lateness of our arrival, we had arranged to stay the first night at the Splendido and go on up to Col da Varda the next day.

As soon as we passed through the Splendido's swing doors, the glittering palace lapped its luxury round us like a hot bath. In every room central heating thrust back the cold of the outside world. There were soft lights, dance bands, and the gleam of silver. Italian waiters, with a hundred different drinks, threaded their way through a colourful mob of men and women from a dozen different countries. Everything was laid on — ski instructors, skating instructors, transport to the main runs, ice hockey matches, ski jumping. It was like a department store in which the thrills of the snow country can be bought at so much a yard. And outside the snow fell heavily.

I picked up a pile of brochures on Cortina whilst waiting for dinner. One announced it as 'the sunny snow paradise in the Dolomites'. Another became lyrical over the rocky peaks, describing them as 'pinnacles rising out of the snow and looking like flames mounting into the Blue Sky'. They spoke with awe of fifty-eight different ski runs and, referring to summer sport at Cortina, stated, 'it is almost impossible to be tired at Cortina: Ride before breakfast, golf before lunch, tennis in the afternoon and a quick bath before dressing for dinner — still one is ready to dance until the early hours.' Nothing out of the ordinary could happen here, I felt. They had made a playground of the cold snow, and the grim Dolomite bastions were pretty peaks to be admired at sunset with a dry Martini.

Joe Wesson had something of the same reaction. He suddenly materialised at my elbow. He wore rubber-soled shoes and moved quietly for such a large man. 'Not a hair out of place, eh?' he said, looking at the brochure over my shoulder. 'It's like the Italians to try to tame Nature with a pot of brilliantine. But it can't be far from here that twenty thousand men died trying to get Hannibal's elephants through the passes. And only a year or two back, I suppose, a lot of our blokes were frozen to death attempting to get through from Germany.'

I tossed the brochures back on to the pile. 'It might be Palm Beach, or the Lido, Venice, or Mayfair,' I agreed. 'Same people — same atmosphere. Only I suppose it's all white outside.'

IB He gave a snort of disgust and led the way in to dinner.

'You'll be glad enough to return to it,' he muttered, 'after you've had a day or two up in that damned hut.'

As I sat down, I glanced round the room at the other diners, wondering whether the girl who had signed herself 'Carla' in that photograph would Be there. She wasn't, of course, though the majority of the women in the room were Italian. I wondered why Engles should expect her to be at Cortina.

'No need to try and catch their eyes,' Joe Wesson said through a mouthful of ravioli. 'Judging by the looks of most of 'em, you've only got to leave your bedroom door open.'

'You're being unnecessarily coarse,' I said.

His little bloodshot eyes twinkled at me. 'Sorry, old man. Forgot you'd been in Italy long enough to know your way around. Is it a contessa or a marchesa you're expecting?'

'I don't quite know,' I replied. 'It could just as well be a signora, or even a signorina, or just a common or garden little tart.'

'Well, if it's the last you're wanting,' he said, 'you shouldn't have much difficulty in this assembly.'

After dinner I went in search of the owner of the hotel. I wanted to find out what local information I could about Col da Varda and its slittovia. Our accommodation at the chalet had been booked through him and I thought, therefore, that he should be able to tell me what there was to know.

Edoardo Mancini was a short stocky man of very light colouring for an Italian. He was part Venetian and part Florentine and he had lived a long time in England. In fact, he had once been in the English bobsleigh team. He had been among the great of the bob-sleigh world. But he had had to pack it up ten years ago after a really bad smash. His right arm had been broken in so many places that it was virtually useless.

Once he had doubtless been a slim, athletic figure, but when I met him he had put on weight so that his movements were slow. He was a heavy drinker. I imagine that started after his final accident. It was not difficult to pick him out among his guests. He looked almost a cripple, his big body moving slowly, almost stiffly among them. He had broken practically every bone in his body at one time or another and I believe he carried quite a weight of platinum around in place of missing bone. But in spite of this, his rather dissipated features were genial under his mop of titian hair, which rose almost straight up from his scalp, giving him height and a curiously youthful air. He was a very wealthy man and the biggest hotelier in Cortina.

Most of this I learned from an American I had met in the bar before dinner. He had been a Colonel in the American Army and had had something to do with Cortina when it was being run as an Allied leave centre.

I found Edoardo Mancini in the bar. He and his wife were having a drink with my American friend and two British officers up from Padua. The American introduced me. I mentioned that I was going up to Col da Varda the next day. 'Ah, yes,' Mancini said. 'There are two of you — no? And you are planning to do a film? You see, I know who my guests are.' And he beamed delightedly. He spoke English very fast and with just the trace of a Cockney accent mixed up with the Italian intonation. But it was very difficult to follow him, for his speech was obstructed by saliva which crept into the corners of his mouth as he talked. I imagine his jaw had been smashed up in one of his accidents and had not set properly.

'Col da Varda belongs to the hotel, does it?' I asked.

'No, no — good heavens, no!' He shook his large head vehemently. 'You must not have that idea. I would not like you to blame all the short-comings of the place on me. You would obtain a bad impression. My hotel is my home. I do not have anybody here, you understand. You are my guests. That is the way I like to think of all these people.' And he waved his hand towards the colourful crowd that thronged the bar and lounge. 'If anything is wrong, we look at it as you would say, my wife and I, we are bad hosts. That is why I will not have you accuse me of Col da Varda. It is not comfortable there. That Aldo is a fool. He does not know how to arrange people. He is lazy and, most terrible of all, he is no good for the bar. Is that not so, Mimosa?'

His wife nodded and smiled from behind her Martini. She was small and attractive and had a nice smile.

'I will — how you say it? — sack him. Please excuse my English. It is many years since I was in England. I had hotels in Brighton and London. But that was long before the war.'

I assured him that he spoke excellent English. Indeed, if I had spoken Italian as well in my own country I should not have felt impelled to apologise.

He nodded, as though that were the reply he expected. 'Yes, I will give him the sack.' He turned to his wife. 'We will give him the sack, dear, the day after tomorrow and we will put Alfredo there. He has a good wife and they will run it well.' He put his hand on my arm. 'In the meantime, you will not blame me — yes? I am only what your doctors would call in loco parentis at the moment. I do the bookings. But on Friday it will become a little piece of the Splendido. Then, if you stay long, you will remark a difference. But it will take time, you understand?'

'You mean you are taking it over?' I asked.

He nodded. 'On Friday. There is an auction. I shall buy it. It is all arranged. Then you will see.'

'I don't quite get you, Mancini,' said the American. 'Don't you have to bid at an Italian auction? A thing like that, auctioned in America, would attract all sorts of real-estators and business men who'd enjoy running a toy like a slittovia. I know you're the biggest hotelier in the place. But I guess there are others who might like that little property.'

. 'You do not understand,' Mancini said with a quick crinkling of the eyes. 'We are not fools here. We are business men. And we are not like cats and dogs. We arrange things with orderliness. The others do not want it. It is too far out for them. But I have a very big hotel here and I am always progressive. It will make money because Col da Varda will become the Splendido's own ski run. I shall run a bus service and it will not be crowded like the Pocol, Tofana and Faloria runs. So, no one will bid but me. An outsider would never buy. He knows there would be a boycott.'

'I'd like to see an Italian auction,' I said. 'Where is it being held?'

'In the lounge of the Luna. You really wish to come?'

'Yes,' I told him. 'It would be very interesting.'

'Then you shall come with me — yes?' Mancini shook his head, smiling. 'But it will be very dull, you know. No fireworks. There will be just the one bid — a very low one. And then it will be over. But if you really wish to come, meet me here at a quarter to eleven on Friday and we will go together. After, we will have a little drink to celebrate — also because, if I do not give you a drink, then you will feel the time is wasted.' He gave a deep throaty chuckle. 'The Government will make little out of it. Which is good because we do not like the Government here. It is of the south and we have a preference for Austria, you know. We are Italian, but we found the Austrians governed better. If there were a plebiscite, I think this part of the country would vote to return to Austria.'

'What's the Government got to do with it?' asked the American. 'As I remember it, the slittovia was constructed by the Germans for their Alpine troops. Then a British division took it over. Did the British military sell out to the Italian Government?'

'No, no. When the war was nearly over, the Germans sold it cheaply to the man who once owned the Excelsior. It was from him that the slittovia was requisitioned by the British. His hotel was requisitioned, too. But when the British left, he found it difficult. He had been too great a collaborator. We persuaded him that it would be best to sell and a small syndicate of us bought him out. You see, we are quite a little family here in Cortina. If things are not right, we make adjustments. That was a year ago. Business was not good, you know. We did not want the slittovia then. It was sold very cheap to a man named Sordini.' He made a dramatic pause. That was a strange business — eh? We did not know. How could we? He was a stranger. It was a big surprise to us when he was arrested. And the two workmen he had up there — they were Germans, too.'

'I don't understand,' I said, trying to hide my excitement. 'Was this Sordini a German?'

'But yes,' he said in a tone of surprise. 'The name Sordini was an alias. He took it in order to escape just retribution for all his crimes. It was all in the papers. It was even on your own radio — I heard it myself. It was a captain of the carabinieri who arrested him. The captain and I were drinking together here in this bar the night before he went up to the hut. We think Sordini must have bought the place as a hideout. They took him to Rome and put him in the Regina Coeli. But he did not kill himself in that prison. Oh no — probably he had friends and hoped to escape, like Roatta, Mussolini's commander in Albania, who was reported to have strolled out of the prison hospital in his pyjamas I and got away down the Tiber in a miniature submarine. No, it was when he was handed over to the British to join the rest of the war criminals that he took the poison.'

'What was his real name?" My voice sounded unnatural as I tried to show only a casual interest.

'Why — Heinrich Stelben,' he answered. 'If you are interested you shall see the cuttings from the newspapers. I keep them because so many of my guests are interested in our local celebrity.' The barman produced them immediately.

'May I borrow these?' I asked.

'But certainly. Only return them please. I wish to have them framed.'

I thanked him, confirmed our arrangement for going to the auction and hurried away to my room. I was greatly excited. Heinrich Stelben! Heinrich! I switched on the table light and took out the photograph Engles had given me. 'Fur Heinrich, mein liebling — Carla.' It was a common enough name. And yet it was strange. I picked up the cuttings. There were two of them and they both were from the Corriere della Venezia. They were quite short. Here they are in full, just as I translated them that first night in Cortina:

Translated from the Corriere della Venezia of November 20,1946 CARABINIERI CAPTAIN CAPTURES GERMAN WAR CRIMINAL IN HIDING NEAR CORTINA.

Heinrich Stelben, German War Criminal, was captured yesterday by Capitano Ferdinando Salvezza of the Carabinieri in his hideout, the rifugio Col da Varda, near Cortina. He was known in the district as Paolo Sordini. The Col da Varda rifugio and slittovia were bought by him from the collaborator, Alberto Oppo, one-time owner of the Albergo Excelsior in Cortina.

Heinrich Stelben was wanted for the murder of ten British Commandos in the La Spezia area in 1944. He was an officer of the hated Gestapo and he is also accused of assisting in the deportation of Italians to Germany for forced labour and of the murder of a number of Italian political prisoners of the Left. He was also responsible for transporting several consignments of gold from Italy to Germany. The largest consignment was from the Banca Commerciale del Popolo of Venice. Half of this consignment mysteriously disappeared before it reached Germany. Stelben states that his troops mutinied and seized part of the gold.

This is the second time that Heinrich Stelben has been arrested by the Carabinieri. The first occasion was at a villa on Lake Como shortly after the surrender of the German Armies in Italy. He was taken to Milan and handed over to the British for interrogation. A few days later he escaped. He disappeared completely. Carla Rometta, a beautiful cabaret dancer, with whom he had been associating, also disappeared.

It is understood that his latest arrest was the result of information lodged with the Carabinieri. With him, at the time of his arrest, were two Germans posing as Italian workmen. It is not known yet whether they are also war criminals.

Heinrich Stelben and his associates have been removed to Rome where they have been lodged in the Regina Coeli.

Translated from the Corriere delta Venezia of November 24,1946 GERMAN WAR CRIMINAL COMMITS SUICIDE Shortly after Heinrich Stelben, infamous German War Criminal, had been taken from the Regina Coeli and handed over to the British Military Authorities, he committed suicide, according to a British press message. Whilst being interrogated, he broke a phial of prussic acid between his teeth.

The two Germans who had been arrested with him near Cortina were involved in the recent rioting in the Regina Coeli. It is understood that they were killed in the course of an attack on the Carabinieri by the inmates of the central block. It was not known whether they were wanted as war criminals.

I read those two cuttings through. And then I glanced again at the photograph. Carla! Carla Rometta! Heinrich Stelben! It was certainly a strange coincidence.

CHAPTER TWO

A 'SLITTOVIA' IS AUCTIONED

Joe Wesson looked tired and cross when I met him at breakfast the next morning. He had been up until the early hours playing stud poker with two Americans and a Czech. 'I'd like to get Engles out here,' he rumbled morosely. 'I'd like to put him on top of that damned col, cut the cable of the slittovia and leave him there. I'd like to give him such a bellyful of snow that he'd never even face ice in a drink again.'

'Don't forget he's a first-class skier,' I said, laughing. Engles had been in the British Olympic team at one time. 'He probably likes snow.'

'I know, I know. But that was in his early twenties, before the war. He's got soft since then. That's what the Army does for people. All he wants now is comfort — and liquor. You think he'd enjoy it up here in that hut — no women, no proper heating, nobody around to tell him how marvellous his ideas are — probably not even a bath?'

'Anyway, there's a bar,' I told him.

I I He gave a snort. 'Bar! I'm told that the man who runs that bar can trace congenital idiocy back through his family for three generations, that he specialises in grappa made from pure methylated spirits and, furthermore, that he is the dirtiest, laziest, stupidist Italian any one has ever met — and that's saying something. And here I'm supposed to drag my camera up to the top of that God-damned col and prance about in the snow taking pictures to satisfy Engles's megalomania. And I don't feel like going up a slittovia this morning. Those sort of things make me dizzy. It was constructed by the Germans and the man who owned it was arrested only a fortnight ago as a German War Criminal. The cable is probably booby-trapped.'

I must admit that when I saw the thing, I didn't like it much myself. We stood at the bottom of it and looked up to the rifugio more than a thousand feet above us. Its gabled roofs and wooden belvedere were just visible at the top of the sleigh track cut through the pinewoods. It was perched high on the shoulder of Monte Cristallo, the great bastions of the mountain towering above it. It was about as remote from civilisation as an eagle's nest.

Our chauffeur got out of the car and shouted, 'Emilio!' A little man, wearing British battle-dress and the most enormous pair of snow boots, emerged from the concrete building that housed the cable plant. The boots dated back to the German occupation when there had been a flak position in the Tre Croci pass.

The snows had only just started down in Cortina, for it was early in the season yet. But up here it was already getting thick and the previous night's fall lay like a virgin blanket over everything.

We transferred our gear to the sleigh, putting our skis in the ski rack at the back. The black case of my typewriter and Joe Wesson's camera equipment seemed out of place. We climbed in. The man with the snow boots got up behind the steering wheel. He pulled over a switch and the cable tightened in front of us so that here and there it jerked clear of the snow. A soft crunching sound and we were gliding forward along the snow track. Almost immediately we were on the slope and the sleigh tilted upwards in an alarming fashion so that I found myself lying on my back rather than sitting on the seat. It was a peculiar and rather frightening sensation. We lost sight of the rifugio. We were looking up a long white avenue between the dark pines. It rose straight into the blue sky and was steep as the side of a house.

I looked back. Already the square Tre Croci hotel was no bigger than a large black box resting on the white blanket of the pass. The road to Austria snaked through the pass like a dirty brown ribbon. The sun shone, but there was no sign of that 'sunny snow paradise' referred to in the tourist brochures. It was a lost and barren world of snow and black forest.

Ahead of us, the cable was strung taut like the string of a violin. There was no sound save the soft slither of the sleigh runners on the snow. The air was still between the dark pines, We were climbing at an angle of about sixty degrees. Joe leaned across me and spoke to the driver in English. 'Do these cables ever break on these things?' he asked.

The driver seemed to understand. He smiled and shook his head. 'No, no, signore. They have not never break. But the funivia—' that was the overhead cable-way down at Cortina, and he let go of the wheel for an instant and spread his hands in an expressive gesture. 'Once he break. Pocol funivia. Molto pericoloso.' And he grinned.

'What happened?' I asked.

'The cable, he gone. But the cable which draw him hold, so they fall twenty metres and do not touch earth. The passengers, they were much frightened.'

'Suppose this cable goes?' I enquired.

'It no go. It is a cable of the tedesci.' Then he crinkled the corners of his blue eyes. 'But if he do go — you see, signori, there is nothing that will not stop you.' And he pointed with a grin down the frightful track behind us.

'Thanks very much,' I said. And I was as glad as I have ever been to get out of that perilous vehicle at the rifugio.

It was large for a rifugio. Most of them only cater for the day visitor and have no sleeping accommodation. Col da Varda, however, had been designed to cater for those who come to the Dolomites for skiing alone and who do not want to dance till the early hours.

It was timber-built of pines from the woods and had been constructed two years ago by the one-time owner of the Excelsior. It was built over and around the concrete housing of the cable machinery for the slittovia. With Teutonic thoroughness the Germans had placed the electrically operated haulage plant at the top of the sleigh track. The hut itself was a long building with great feet of pine piles driven deep into the snow. Its main feature was a large belvedere or platform, protected by glass like the bridge of a ship. It looked south and west across Tre Croci and down the pass to Cortina. The view was a magnificent study in black and white in the sunshine. And though it was still early and we were nearly 8,000 feet up, it was already warm enough to sit outside.

Back from the belvedere was a large eating room. It was lined with resined match-boarding and had big windows and long pine tables with forms on each side. In one corner was a typically Italian bar with a chromium-plated coffee geyser and, behind it, a shining array of bottles of all shapes in the midst of which swung the brass pendulum of a cuckoo clock. Between the bar and the door leading to the kitchen and the rest of the hut was a big tiled stove of Austrian pattern and there was an old upright piano in the far corner.

We went through the door towards the kitchen. Our first sight of Aldo was a head popped through the servicing hatch in the kitchen door. It was a hairless head, sparsely garnished with a few grey tufts and both scalp and face gleamed as though freshly polished. The eyes had a dumb look and the mouth smiled vacantly as though apologising for the rest of it. The man was an ape. A moment's conversation with him convinced me of it. His smile was the only human thing about him. His brain was primordial. Joe Wesson said of him later that he was the sort of man who, if you told him to take away a plate and his hands were full of glasses, he would drop the glasses to pick up the plate. I asked him to show us to our rooms. He began to gobble at us confusedly like a turkey. His face became red. He gesticulated. Though his Italian was almost unintelligible, I gathered that he had received no booking. I told him to ring up the Splendido. I had seen a telephone at the end of the bar. He shrugged his shoulders and said he had no room anyway.

'What's he gibbering about?' Joe asked. And when I told him, his cheeks began to quiver with anger. 'Nonsense,' he said. 'Tell the oaf to take his head out of that ridiculous hatch and come out here where my toe can get acquainted with the seat of his pants. I'd be delighted to have an excuse to go back to that nice comfortable hotel. But I'm damned if I go down that slittovia again. Once is quite enough for one day.'

I opened the door that framed Aide's face and he came out, looking scared. I told him that my friend and I were getting angry. He began to gabble Italian at us again. 'Oh, to hell with it!' Joe exclaimed. 'Let's have a look at the rooms. There should be six and I was told only two were occupied.'

I nodded and we tramped up the uncarpeted stairs, Aldo following with a flood of Italian. At the top was a long corridor. The rooms were little match-board cubicles leading off it. The first door I opened revealed an empty room. I turned to Aldo. He spread his arms and drew down the corners of his mouth. The next door I opened showed a room with the bed unmade and clothes strewn around. The third room was actually occupied. Aldo had rushed to prevent my opening it, but Joe had swept him aside. A short, neat little man with long, sleek hair turning grey at the temples and a face that looked like a piece of dark crinkled rubber stood facing the door as I opened it. He was wildly over-dressed for a man living in the Col da Varda hut. He wore a natty near-dun-coloured suiting, a blue silk shirt and a yellow tie with red yachts sailing across it. He held a comb in his left hand and his attitude was curiously defensive. 'You are looking for me?' he asked in almost perfect English.

I hastened to explain. Aldo ducked beneath Joe's arm and became voluble. It was a duet in English and Italian. The occupant of the room cut Aldo short with a gesture of annoyance. 'My name is Stefan Valdini,' he said. 'This man is a fool,' he added, pointing to Aldo. 'He tries to save himself work by discouraging people from staying here. He is a lazy dog.' He had a soft purring voice that was a shade better than suave. 'Cretino!' He flung the offensive term mildly at Aldo as though it were common usage. 'There are four rooms vacant. Give the English the two end ones.'

I had expected Aldo to become angry — you can call an Italian a bastard and give the crudest and most colourful description of his entire family and he will do no more than grin, but call him 'cretino' and he usually becomes speechless with rage. But Aldo only grinned slavishly and said, 'Si, si, Signer Valdini — pronto.'

So we found ourselves ushered into the two end cubicles. The window of Joe's room looked straight down the trackway of the slittovia. Mine, however, faced south across the belvedere. I could only see the slittovia by leaning out and getting the drips from the over-hanging snow down my neck. It was a grand view. The whole hillside of pines fell away, rank on rank of pointed treetops, to the valley. And to the right, above me, the great bastions of Monte Cristallo towered cold and forbidding even in the sunlight. 'Rum place, Neil.' Joe Wesson's bulk filled the narrow doorway. 'Who was the little man who looked like a pimp for a high-class bordello') Behaved as though he owned the place.'

'Don't know,' I said. I was busy unpacking my things and my mind was thinking what a place it was for the setting of a skiing film. 'Oldest inhabitant, perhaps — though he certainly looked as though he'd be more at home in a night club.'

'Well, now we're in we may as well have a drink to celebrate,' Joe muttered. 'I'll be at the bar. I'm going to try some of that red biddy they call grappa.'

The first sleigh-load of skiers arrived whilst I was still unpacking. They were a colourful crowd, sunburned and brightly clad. They thronged the belvedere, lounging in the warm sun, drinking out of tall glasses. They were talking happily in several languages. I watched them, fascinated, as in groups of two or three, or alone, they put on their skis and swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci or disappeared into the dark firs, whooping 'Liberal' as they took the gentler track back to Cortina. Anna, a half-Italian, half-Austrian waitress, flirted in and out among the tables with trays laden with salami and eggs and ravioli. She had big laughing eyes and there was a quick smile and better service for the men who had no women with them. What a scene for Technicolor! The colours stood out so startlingly against the black and white background.

The novelty of the setting was a spur to my determination to write something that Engles would accept. If I couldn't write a script here, I knew I should never be able to write one. I was still planning the script in my mind as I went down to join Joe at the bar.

At the bottom of the stairs, I came upon a tall, rather distinguished-looking man who was having a heated argument with Aldo. He had long, very thick-growing hair, strangely shot with.grey. His face was deeply tanned, except where the white of a scar showed against the bulge of his jaw muscles. He was wearing an all-white ski suit with a yellow scarf round his neck. I realised what the trouble was immediately. 'Have you booked a room here?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'This man is either a fool or he has given the room to somebody else and doesn't want to admit it.'

'I've just had the same trouble,' I said. 'I don't know why he doesn't want visitors. He just doesn't. But there are two rooms vacant at the moment. There's nobody in the one at the top of the stairs, so I should go up and stake your claim.'

'I will. Many thanks.' He gave me a lazy smile and took his things up the stairs. Aldo gave a shrug and dropped the corners of his mouth. Then he followed on.

Joe and I spent the remainder of the morning sitting out in the sunshine drinking cognac and discussing the shots Engles would expect. The multi-coloured plumage of the skiers and the babel of tongues that ranged from the tinselled guttural of Austrian to the liquid flood of Italian was a background to our conversation; absorbed, but not remarked in detail. Joe was no longer disgruntled at being perched up here on the cold shoulder of an Alp. He was a cameraman now, interested only in angles and lights and setting. He was an artist who has been given a good subject. And I was doubly preoccupied — I was listening to Joe and at the same time rolling an idea for a script round my mind.

I did not notice her arrive. I don't know how long she had been there. I just glanced up suddenly and saw her. Her head and shoulders stood out against the white backcloth of a snow-draped fir. For a second I was puzzled. I thought I knew her and yet I could not place her. Then, as I stared, she took off her dark glasses and looked straight at me, dangling them languidly between long slender brown fingers. And then I remembered and dived for my wallet and the photograph Engles had given me.

The likeness was striking. But I wasn't sure. The photograph was old and faded, and the girl who had signed herself 'Carla' had shorter, sleeked-back hair. But the features looked the same. I glanced up again at the woman seated at the table on the other side of the belvedere. Her raven black hair swept up in a great wave above her high forehead and tumbled in a mass to her shoulders. The way she sat and her every movement proclaimed an almost animal consciousness of her body. She wasn't particularly young, nor was she particularly beautiful. Her mouth, scarlet to match her ski suit, was too wide and full, and there were deep lines at the corners of her eyes. But she was exciting. She was all of a man's baser thoughts come true. She caught my eye as I compared her with the photograph in my hand. Her glance was an idle caress, speculative and not disinterested, like the gaze of an animal that is bored and is looking for someone to play with.

'My God, Neil!' Joe tapped me on the arm. 'Are you trying to bed that woman down?'

'Don't be revolting,' I said. I "felt slightly embarrassed. Joe was so solidly British in that foreign set-up. 'Why make a vulgar suggestion like that on a lovely morning?'

'You were looking at her as though you wanted to eat her,' he replied. 'She's got that little Valdini chap for boyfriend. You want to go steady with these people. Knives, you know. They're not civilised. He struck me as an ugly little fellow to start an argument with over a girl.' He was right. The man sitting opposite her was Valdini. He had his back towards us.

'Don't be absurd, Joe,' I said. Then I showed him the photograph, keeping my thumb across the writing. 'Is that the same girl?' I asked him.

He cocked his head on one side and screwed up his little bloodshot eyes. 'Hmm. Could be. How did you get hold of that?'

'It's the picture of an Italian actress,' I lied quickly. 'I knew her in Naples just before Anzio. She gave it to me then. The point is — is the woman sitting over there the girl I knew or not?'

'I don't know,' he replied. 'And frankly, old man, I don't give a damn. But it seems to me that the best way to find out is to go and ask her.'

Joe, of course, did not realise the difficulty. Engles had said, do nothing. But I had to be certain. It seemed so fantastic that she should turn up on the very first day I was at Col da Varda. But the likeness was certainly striking. I suddenly made up my mind and got to my feet. 'You're right,' I said. 'I'll go and find out.'

'Well, don't go treading on the corns of that overdressed little pimp. I'm a good chucker-out in a London bar. But I'm too big a target to play around with people I suspect of being expert knife-throwers.'

She had seen me get up and her eyes watched me intently as I crossed the belvedere. Valdini looked up as I reached the table. 'Excuse me,' I said to her, 'but I feel sure I met you when I was in Italy with the British Army.'

There was an awkward pause. She was watching me. So was Valdini. Then she gave me a sudden warm smile. 'I do not think so,' she said in English. Her voice was deep and liquid. It was like a purr. 'But you look nice. Come and sit down and tell me about it.'

Valdini, who had been watching me guardedly, now sprang to his feet. Polished and suave, he produced a chair for me from the next table.

'Well,' she said as I sat down, 'where was it that we met?'

I hesitated. Her eyes were very dark and they were looking at me with open amusement. 'I think your name is Carla,' I said.

The eyes suddenly went blank. They were cold and hard — hard like the eyes in the photograph.

'I think you have made a mistake,' she said coldly.

Valdini came to the rescue. 'Perhaps I should make an introduction. This is the Contessa Forelli. And this is Mr Blair. He is from an English film company.' I wondered how he had found that out and why he had taken the trouble.

'I am sorry,' I said. 'I thought your surname might be — Rometta.'

I was convinced she caught her breath. But her eyes did not change. She had control of herself. 'Well, now perhaps you know you have made a mistake, Mr Blair,' she said.

I was still not sure. I pulled the photograph out of my pocket and showed it to her. 'Surely this is a photograph of you?' I said. I kept the bottom part covered.

She leaned forward quickly. 'Where did you get that?' There was nothing purrful about her voice as she shot the question at me. It was hard and angry and brittle. Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she said, 'No, you can see for yourself that it is not my photograph. But it is strange. It is a great likeness. Let me look at it.' And she extended a strong brown hand imperiously.

I pretended not to hear her request. I put the photograph back in my pocket. 'Most extraordinary!' I murmured. 'The likeness is quite remarkable. I felt certain—' I rose to my feet. 'You must excuse me, CON-TESSA,' I said, bowing. 'The likeness is quite extraordinary.'

'Don't go, Mr Blair.' She gave me a hard, brilliant smile and the purr was back in her voice. 'Stay and have a drink — and tell me more about that photograph. It is so nearly myself that I would like to know more about it. I am intrigued. Stefan, order a drink for Mr Blair.'

'No, please, Contessa,' I said. 'I have been guilty of sufficient bad manners for one day. Please accept my apologies. It was the likeness — I had to be certain.'

I went back to Joe. 'Well,' he said, as I resumed my seat, 'was she the girl or not?'

'I think so,' I told him.

'Couldn't you make certain?'

'She didn't want to be recognised,' I explained.

'I don't blame her,' he grunted. 'I wouldn't want to be recognised in the company of that little tyke, especially if I were a woman. Look at him getting up now. He positively bounces with his own self-importance.'

I watched the Contessa rise and put on her skis. She did not once glance in my direction. The incident might never have happened. She took the dapper little Valdini out on to the snow for a moment's conversation. Then, with a flash of her sticks, she swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci. As he came back, Valdini darted a quick glance at me.

We had lunch out on the belvedere and, afterwards, Joe went out with his camera and a pair of borrowed snow-shoes and I retired to my room to start work on the script. But I could not settle down. I could not concentrate. My mind kept wandering to the mystery of Engles' interest in Col da Varda. First the story of Heinrich Stelben's arrest. Now the Contessa Forelli, who looked so like Carla. It was stretching coincidence too far to believe that there was no connection. And what was it about the place that drew them here? If only Engles had told me more. But perhaps he hadn't known much more. The slittovia was beginning to dominate my thoughts as it dominated the rifugio. I could hear it even up in my bedroom, a low, grating drone whenever the sleigh came up or went down. And in the bar, which was right over the concrete machine room, the sound of it was almost deafening.

At length I gave up any attempt to write. I tapped out a report for Engles and went down to the bar in time to see Joe returning with his camera. The snow-shoes were circular contraptions fixed to his boots. He looked like a great clumsy elephant as he floundered up the slope of the Cortina run. The day visitors had all left long ago and it was getting dark and very cold outside. The rifugio seemed to be shrinking into itself for the night. Aldo stoked up the great tiled stove and we gravitated naturally to the bar and anisetto.

It was whilst we were standing round the bar that an incident occurred that is worth recording. It was a small thing — or appeared so at the time — yet it was very definitely a part of the pattern of events. There were four of us there at the time — Joe Wesson and myself, Valdini and the new arrival, who had introduced himself as Gilbert Mayne. He was Irish, but by his conversation appeared to have seen a good deal of the world, particularly the States.

Valdini had been trying to pump me about the photograph. It was difficult to put him off. He was what schoolboys would call 'bumptious'. You hit him and he bounced. He had a hide like a brontosaurus. But in the end I managed to convince him that I regarded the matter as being of little importance and that I really felt that I had made a foolish mistake. The talk gradually drifted to strange means of conveyance, such as the slittovia. Mayne, I remember, was talking about riding the tubs on overhead haulage gear, when the cable machinery began to drone under our feet. The steady grinding sound of it made conversation almost impossible. The whole room seemed to shake. 'Who'd be coming up as late as this?' Mayne asked.

Valdini looked up from cleaning his nails with a matchstick. 'That will be the other visitor here. He is a Greek. His name is Keramikos. Why he stays here I do not know. I think he likes Cortina better.' He grinned and, transferring the matchstick to his mouth, began to pick his teeth. 'He is of the Left. He knows all that transpires politically in Greece. And he likes the women. The Contessa, for instance — he cannot take his eyes off her. He gloats, as you would say.' And he sucked his teeth obscenely.

The sound of the slittovia slowed and ceased. Valdini kept on talking. 'He reminds me of a Greek business man I once knew,' he continued. 'I was running a boat on the Nile. It was beautiful and very profitable. For tired business men, you know. The gairls were all hand-picked.' The way he said 'gairls' made it sound like a breed of animals. 'It was a sort of show boat.'

'You mean a floating brothel," Joe grunted. 'Why the hell don't you call things by their proper names! Anyway, I don't find the subject a particularly pleasing one. I'm not interested in your brothels.'

'But, Mistair Wesson, it is so sordid the way you talk about it. It was beautiful, you understand. There was the moonlight. The moon is lovely on the Nile. And there was the music. It was a very good business. And this Greek — I forget his name — he was a wealthy business man from Alexandria — always he wanted a different gairl. He was a gold mine. I made a great deal—' He stopped then because he realised that we were not listening.

Whilst he had been talking brisk steps had sounded on the boarding of the belvedere. Then the door had opened and the cold dark of the outside world had invaded the warm room. I suppose we had all been watching the door with some interest. One is always interested in getting the first glimpse of a person one is expected to live with in an isolated place. It was mere idle curiosity.

But the man who entered stopped in the doorway at the sight of the four of us grouped about the bar. He seemed rooted to the spot, his thick-set body framed in the dark gap like a statue in its niche. He was looking at Mayne. And Mayne had stiffened. His tall figure was tensed. It was only for a second. And during that second the atmosphere was electric. Then Mayne turned to the bar and ordered another round of drinks. The Greek closed the door and came over to the bar. Everything was suddenly normal again.

I was convinced Mayne and the Greek had recognised each other. But there was no indication of this as the Greek came over to us and introduced himself. He was stockily built with a round face and blue eyes that peered short-sightedly through thick-lensed, rimless glasses. His light brown hair was very thin on top and his neck was short, so that his head seemed to be set straight into the wide powerful shoulders.

He spoke good English in a low, rather thick voice. He had a way of thrusting his head forward when making a point, a mannerism which gave him a somewhat belligerent air.

Only once throughout the evening did anything occur to support my theory that he and Mayne had met before. We were discussing the revolt of the Greek Brigade in Egypt during the war. Keramikos was extremely well informed on the details of it. So well informed, in fact, that Joe suddenly emerged from a prolonged silence and said quietly, 'You talk as though you organised the whole damned thing.' I could have sworn the Greek exchanged a quick glance with Mayne. It was not a friendly glance. It was as though on that point they were on common ground.

One other thing occurred that night that seemed strange to me. Engles had wanted full information on the people staying at Col da Varda, so I decided to send him a photograph of them. After dinner, I persuaded Joe to get his Leica and take a few shots of the group at the bar. I told him I wanted the shots to prove to Engles that the hut would have more atmosphere than a hotel for the indoor scenes. Little Valdini was delighted when Joe came in with his camera and began posing immediately. But when Mayne and Keramikos saw it, they turned their backs and began talking earnestly. Joe asked them to face the camera and Mayne said over his shoulder, 'We're not part of your film company, you know.'

Joe grunted and took a few pictures. But only Valdini and Aldo were facing the camera. I began to ask him questions about the camera. I knew perfectly well how it worked, but I was determined to get a picture of those two. He let me handle it and I took it over to the bar under the light. The cuckoo suddenly sprang out of the clock. 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' Mayne and Keramikos looked up, startled, and I snapped them.

At the click of the camera, Mayne turned to me. 'Did you take a photograph?' he asked, and there was a note of anger in his voice.

'I'm not sure,' I said. 'Why?'

He looked at me hard. He had cold, light-coloured eyes.

'He does not like being photographed,' Valdini said, and there was malice in his tone.

Mayne's eyes hardened with anger. But he said nothing to Valdini and turned back with a casual air to continue his conversation with Keramikos.

These are small things, but they stood out like wrong notes in a smoothly played piece of music. I had a strange feeling that all these people — Valdini, Keramikos and Mayne — were suppressing violent antipathy beneath a casual exterior.

Shortly after breakfast the next morning I left for Cortina. Mayne came with me. I had mentioned the auction to him the previous night and he had expressed a desire to come. As we were leaving, we passed Joe cursing a pair of skis on his feet. 'Feel like a pair of canoes,' he grumbled. 'Six years since I did this. Doubt if my blood pressure will stand it. If I break my neck, I'll sue Engles for it. But I can't get the pictures I want otherwise.' He had a small movie camera slung round his neck. 'If I'm not back by tea-time, Neil, you'd better call out the bloodhounds. Where are you off to?'

When I told him, he gave me an old-fashioned look. 'Far be it for me to come between you and what you apparently regard as amusement, old man,' he said. 'But Engles is expecting a script out of you. And he detests slow workers.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, well, you know the man. But maybe he was less exacting in the Army. With a film unit, he just isn't human. Why do you think I'm putting on these damned things?'

I thanked him, for he meant it kindly. He wasn't to know that Engles had already got a script.

It was a glorious morning. The sky was blue. The sun shone. But the world was deathly still. No birds sang in the dark fir woods. In all that glistening country there was no sign of life. The slittovia was even more terrifying going down. We sat facing the rifugio — or rather we lay on our backs facing it. And we travelled down through the lane between the firs backwards. As though by mutual consent we talked. And the talk developed into a comparison of the merits of various Italian composers. Mayne knew his opera and hummed snatches to illustrate his points. He preferred the gay swiftness of The Barber and the subtle comedy of lesser known operas, like I quattro rusteghi, to the heavier pieces. In this we differed, for Traviata is my favourite. But we were on common ground in our enthusiasm for the spectacle of Aida, played beneath a full moon in the open-air theatre in Rome with the colossal, shadowy bulk of the Baths of Caracalla as its setting. I must confess that, at that moment, I liked his company immensely.

As we came into Cortina by car, the streets were full of skiers moving out to the Various runs. They were a gaily coloured throng, their tanned faces glowing with the cold mountain air. The little town, with its gables and high, pencil-sharp church steeple, looked bright and gay in the sunlight. There were tourists wandering the snow-piled pavements, gazing in the shop windows or sitting in steamy-windowed cafes drinking coffee and cognac. The two overhead cable railways — the funivias — stretched out their cables, like antennae, on either side of the town. The one to the left climbed to Mandres in one cable jump and then scaled the heights of Faloria in a single sweep. It was just possible to make out the line of the cable, like a frail thread, and the little red car against the sun-warmed brown of the Faloria cliffs. On the other side of the town, a shorter cable made one bound to the rounded knoll of Pocol, with its hotels and the slittovias leading to the more advanced runs — Col Druscie and the Tofana Olympic run.

I left Mayne at the Luna and then went on to the ufficio della posta where I caught the air mail with my second report to Engles and the roll of film. When I arrived at the Splendido, Mancini was drinking in the bar with several fellow hoteliers. He greeted me as though I were the one person he had been waiting for. He had great ability as a host. 'You must have a drink, Mr Blair,' he said. 'The Luna is always so cold.' And he grinned like a playful lion at a thin, neat little Italian, whom I guessed to be the owner of the Gran' Albergo Luna. 'A large Martini — yes? It will prevent ennui. Then we will go and buy the slittovia. Afterwards we will celebrate. Whenever one of us buys something, we all celebrate. It is the excuse. Always there must be the excuse.'

The lounge of the Luna was warm and cosy when we arrived. There were between twenty and thirty people there — all men and mostly Italian. They had the indifference of spectators. They were not there to buy. They were there because it was a social function and there would be drinks afterwards. They crowded round Mancini, laughing and chattering, congratulating him on his latest acquisition. Mayne was sunk in an easy-chair with a tall glass in front of him. I went across and joined him. He pulled up a chair and ordered me a drink. But he did not seem interested in conversation. He was watching the scene closely. His interest switched suddenly to the door. I followed the direction of his gaze and was surprised to see that Valdini had entered. He moved jauntily with an air of colossal self-importance. This morning it was a darker suiting with a sheen of mauve in it. The shirt was cream-coloured and the tie red, shot with blue flashes of forked lightning. 'What's Valdini doing here?' I asked. 'Shouldn't have thought he would have been interested in an auction.'

'I don't know.' Mayne spoke softly, as though to himself, and there was a puzzled frown on his dark handsome face.

Then the auctioneer entered. He moved with the self-conscious air of a man about to conjure something out of a hat. You felt there should have been a fanfare of trumpets to herald that entrance. He moved through the room as though it were an Audience, bowing to acquaintances, pausing a moment here and there to shake a hand. You felt it was his moment. He had two waiters hovering behind him. He indicated a table. He had it moved. He chose a chair. It was placed ready for him. He tossed his papers on to the table. The maitre d'hotel brought on his hammer and set it carefully on the polished table top. An imaginary fleck of dust was hastily removed. Then finally, the auctioneer settled himself behind the table. He beat upon the top of it dramatically. The room began to settle itself. Mancini moved to a vacant table just near me. The pack followed at his heels. He pulled his chair next to me. 'He is amusing — yes?' he said, nodding towards the auctioneer.

'The entrance was nicely handled,' I said.

He smiled and nodded. 'We are a theatrical race,' he said. 'That is why, when an Italian is executed, he dies well. He may not like the result, but he enjoys the moment. Now, you will see. We shall be very quiet and he will talk for a long time. We know this slittovia as well as we know our own hotels. But he will describe it to us as though we had never seen it. He will make the lyric of the description. He will become excited. He will make gestures. It will be the grand performance. And then, when he is exhausted, I shall make the bid and it will be sold for what has already been arranged. It is all very un-English,' he added with a sly twinkle. 'But I am glad you are amused. If you were not amused, you would be bored, and that would make me sad.'

The hammer crashed on to the table top again. The room stopped talking. The curtain had been rung up. The performance had begun. The auctioneer began reading the conditions of sale. He slipped through it rapidly. It gave him no scope. But then came the reasons for the sale. He told of its original purchase by the 'miserable' Sordini from the collaborator who had once owned the Excelsior. He told of Sordini's arrest, of the 'world-shaking' news that he was Heinrich Stelben, a German war criminal wanted for the most 'terrible, fearful and blood-thirsty crimes against the Italian and British peoples'. He drew a word portrait of this 'madman'. He touched briefly on the crimes of the 'terrible tedesci', and barely saved himself from a short history of how the Italian people had been 'roused by terrible and barbaric acts' and had forced the 'hated' Germans to surrender. Then suddenly, pianissimo, he began to describe the slittovia and the hut on Col da Varda. Gradually he whipped himself into a lyrical frenzy — it was a 'stupendous' opportunity for an astute business man with 'grand' ideas, an incredibly beautiful property, thoroughly equipped by 'brilliant German engineers', a 'small hotel with a finer panoramic view than the Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden'.

Then suddenly his voice ceased. The room was silent as though the performance had taken everyone's breath away. At any moment I expected a wild outburst of applause. Surely they must demand an encore. But the room remained silent. The auctioneer ran his fingers through his long hair, which had fallen in dank strands across his face. His thin features wore a disappointed look. He pushed his glasses-farther back on his long nose and offered the property for sale in a cold matter-of-fact voice.

'Due cento cinquanta mila.' Mancini's voice was quiet and there was a tired air of finality about the offer. A quarter of a million lire. The auctioneer pretended to be aggrieved. That was the low reserve placed on the property by the Government. Mancini had doubtless put in some hard social work to get the figure down as low as that. The auctioneer called for further bids. But he knew it was hopeless. He knew it was all arranged. His brief moment was over. He was no longer interested. He gave a shrug and raised his hammer.

'Tre cento mila.' The voice was quiet and smooth. A sudden flood of surprised volubility swept the room. Heads were turned, necks craned. I knew the voice before I picked out his neat little figure strategically placed where the sunlight fell on him in a shaft from one of the tall windows. It was Valdini. His chest, gaily coloured like the plumage of some elaborate tropical fowl, was puffed out importantly. His dark rubbery face beamed as he held the limelight.

Mancini was talking rapidly to the men around him. He was literally quivering with anger. I turned to Mayne to make some comment. But he did not appear to hear me. He was leaning forward, gazing at Valdini with intense interest. He was smiling slightly and there was a glint in his eyes — of amusement or excitement, I could not tell which.

The auctioneer was clearly astonished. He asked Valdini if he had heard correctly. Valdini repeated his bid — three hundred thousand lire. All eyes were turned to Mancini, to see what the great man would do. He had recovered himself. One of his friends slipped quietly out of the room. Mancini lit a cigarette, settled himself more comfortably in his chair and raised the bidding ten thousand.

Valdini did not hesitate. He went straight up to four hundred thousand. 'And ten,' said Mancini.

S3 'Fifty,' came from the window. Mancini raised to sixty. Valdini jumped to five hundred thousand. So it went on, Mancini going up in tens and Valdini in fifties till they hit the million. Word of the duel had spread quickly through the hotel. People were standing thick about the door.

At a million lire there was a pause in the bidding. Mancini had been getting slower and slower in his bids as the figures rose. He sat hunched in his seat, his jaw set and his eyes sullen. It was not the money he cared about so much as this deliberate flouting of his position in Cortina. It hurt his pride to have to haggle in public for something that everyone knew he had arranged in private. I leaned across to him and ventured to ask him what the property was worth. 'To me, perhaps a million,' he replied. 'To an outsider, nothing.'

'You mean you will boycott the place and Valdini will lose his money?' I asked.

'Valdini?' He laughed mirthlessly. 'Valdini is a dirty little Sicilian gangster. He loses nothing. It is not his money.'

'He is acting for someone then?' I asked.

He nodded. 'The Contessa Forelli, I think. I have sent someone to try and find out.'

The auctioneer had grown tired of waiting. He poised his hammer. Mancini raised the bidding ten again.

'Cinquanta,' came the monotonous voice of Valdini.

'Sessanta.'

'Cento.'

'I do not understand it,' Mancini muttered angrily to me. 'They will pay through the nose and make a bad business of it. There are hidden reasons. That Forelli woman is up to something. She is too clever with men.'

The man who had slipped out for Mancini returned and whispered in his ear. 'Ma, perche?' I heard him ask.

The man shrugged his shoulders. Mancini turned and raised the bidding again. 'It is Forelli,' he said to me. 'But why I do not know. She must have a reason. If I knew it and it was worth the money, I would give her a defeat. But I do not throw money in the drain, you understand.' He was near the limit he would go. I felt sorry for him. He did not want me to think him unsporting or lacking in courage. He did not like an Englishman to see him defeated.

The bidding crawled slowly up to the one and a half million mark. Then Valdini astonished the whole room by changing his tactics. He jumped from one and a half to two millions. There was a note of triumph in his voice. He guessed the hotelier would not follow him to that figure.

His psychology was right. Mancini shrugged his shoulders as the auctioneer glanced at him enquiringly. Then he rose to his feet. The bidding was over. Mancini was making a grand exit as though washing his hands of a preposterous business. The auctioneer raised his hammer. This time his movement was quicker.

But as the hammer rose, a sharp firm voice said, 'Due e mezzo.'

The room gasped. Two and a half million lire!

Mancini sat down again, searching the room. For a moment there was not a sound. I looked across at Valdini. The beaming importance had been wiped from his face by this fresh bid. His features had a mean look. The auctioneer searched out and found the new bidder. He was a small, pallid man in a dark grey suit seated uncomfortably on an upright chair. He looked like an undertaker. His clothes did not suggest that he was worth a lot of money. Asked to repeat his bid, he did so in the same firm voice.

The auctioneer glanced at Valdini who nodded his head with a worried look and raised the bidding five hundred thousand. 'Tre million!.' The voice was firm and impersonal. It hushed the sudden outburst of excited conversation.

'This is incredible,' I said to Mayne.

His eyes were fixed intently on the new bidder. He did not hear me. I turned to Mancini. 'Who is the little man who is bidding?' I asked him.

'A lawyer from Venezia,' he said. 'He is a partner in a firm which works for big industrial enterprises. He, too, is bidding for a client.' His tone showed his concern. I think he was envisaging a big syndicate invading Cortina with money enough to put himself and his friends out of business.

Valdini suddenly jumped five hundred thousand. His voice was pitched a shade high as he made the bid. It was a violent gesture. 'Shock tactics,' I whispered to Mayne.

He was still watching the scene intently, his eyes narrowed. I noticed the knuckles of his hands were white where they gripped the chair. He was clearly very excited by the bidding. Suddenly he relaxed. 'What? — oh, shock tactics — yes. Valdini is near his limit.' And he turned away again, tense and watchful.

The little lawyer seemed to hesitate. He was watching Valdini closely. Valdini was nervous. His eyes darted here and there around the room. Everyone was watching him. Everyone sensed that he was approaching his limit. A gust of excited whisperings filled the room. The cold voice of the lawyer stilled it. Four million and one hundred thousand, he bid.

The room gasped. The lawyer was reckoning on Valdini's limit being four million. One glance at Valdini's face showed that he was right. The bidding had passed beyond him. Valdini asked permission of the auctioneer to telephone his client. Permission was refused. He pleaded. His client, he explained, had not expected the bidding to go so high. He suggested that the auctioneer himself had not expected it. It was fantastic. In such exceptional circumstances the auctioneer should permit him to refer to his client for instructions. The auctioneer refused.

He and the room waited in suspense, watching the workings of Valdini's mind. It was clear that he wanted to go on, but that he did not dare without further instructions. The hammer rose, hesitated as the auctioneer raised his eyebrows in Valdini's direction, and then finally fell.

The astonishing auction was over. The slittovia was sold to an unknown buyer.

CHAPTER THREE

MURDER FOR TWO

There was no celebration after the auction. The room split up into excited, gesticulating groups. Mancini went off to confer with half the hoteliers in Cortina. I don't know where Mayne went to — he just seemed to drift off on his own. I found myself having a lonely lunch at the Luna, trying to figure out what all this had to do with Engles.

When I got back to Col da Varda, there were several parties of skiers there, for the sun was still warm. I went straight up to my room and wrote out a report of the auction for Engles. By the time I went downstairs again the skiers had all gone. But Valdini was there. He was standing at the bar, drinking. He had a furtive look.

'You had bad luck,' I said for the sake of something to say.

He shrugged his shoulders. He would have liked to appear unconcerned. But he was very drunk. He could not control his features. He looked so wretchedly miserable that I felt almost sorry for the little bounder. 'Anyway, you had Mancini licked,' I encouraged him.

'Mancini,' he snarled. 'He is a fool. He knows nothing. But that other…' He suddenly burst into tears. It was a disgusting sight.

'I am sorry,' I said. I think my voice must have sounded rather stiff.

'Sorry!' he snarled with a sudden change of mood. 'Why should you be sorry? It is me — Stefan — who is sorry. I should be the proprietor here now. This place should be mine.' He made a grand wavering movement of his arm, and then added, 'Yes, mine — and everything in it.' And he peered forward at me cunningly.

'You mean it should belong to the Contessa Forelli, don't you?' I said.

His eyes focused on me soberly for a second. 'You know too much, Blair,' he said. 'You know too damn much.' He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. His expression was not a pleasant one. I remembered Mancini's description of him — 'a dirty little Sicilian gangster'. I had thought at the time that Mancini was just giving vent to his anger. But it occurred to me now that perhaps that was just what Valdini was. He looked ugly, and dangerous.

Footsteps sounded on the wooden boards of the belvedere and the door was thrown open. It was the Contessa, and she was in a blazing temper — it showed in her face and in her eyes and in the way she moved. She was all in white — white ski suit, white gloves, white tam-o'-shanter. Only her scarf and ski socks were red. She looked hard at Valdini. The little man seemed to curl up, deflated. Then she looked past me to the bar. 'Aldo!' she called.

The ape came running. She ordered cognac and went out to a table in the sun.

'I think your boss wants you,' I said to Valdini.

He glared at me. But he made no retort and followed Aldo and the cognac out on to the belvedere. When Aldo returned, he went behind the bar and produced a cable envelope. 'For you, signore,' he said, handing it across to me.

'When did this come?' I asked him in Italian.

This morning, signore. Just before you left. Emilio brought it up when he came to fetch you this morning.'

'Then why the hell didn't you give it to me?' I asked angrily. 'Can't you see it's a cable and therefore important?' He smiled sheepishly and spread his hands in the inevitable gesture that he used to explain all his shortcomings.

I ripped open the envelope. It was from Engles and read: Presume attending auction. Cable fullest report Mancini unbuy. Engles.

I folded the cable and put it in my pocket. He wanted a cabled report if Mancini was not the buyer. Had he expected there to be an unknown buyer at the auction? What difference could it make to him who bought Col da Varda? However, he wanted the information by cable and that meant going down to Cortina again. I decided to give myself a try-out on skis. I hadn't done any skiing since I had gone up to Tolmina from Rome, and that had been two years ago. I was just going to get my ski things when I remembered a question that I wanted to put to Aldo. It had been in my mind ever since Valdini had begun to bid at the auction.

'You remember you did not want to let us have rooms here?' I said to him in Italian. 'That was because Signor Valdini had instructed you to turn visitors away, wasn't it?'

He looked helplessly towards the belvedere. He was afraid to answer. But it was clear that I was right. 'Now importante,' I said. It looked as though Valdini and the Contessa had planned to close the place down as soon as the purchase had been completed. Why?

I went up to my room and got my things. I typed out my reply to Engles' cable. It read: Auction sensation. Sold unknown purchaser operating Venice lawyer. Valdini for Carla outbid Mancini two million. Unknown outbid Valdini four million. Blair.

When I got downstairs again the Contessa was alone in the bar. As I made for the door, she suddenly called out,' Mr Blair!'

I turned. She was leaning against the bar. Her eyes were inviting and her wide mouth was made attractive by a little smile that lifted the corners of it. 'Come and have a drink with me,' she suggested. 'I do not like drinking by myself. Besides, I wish to talk to you. I would like to know more about my photograph.'

I felt ill-at-ease. She was hard and hard women frighten me. Besides, how was I to explain how that photograph came into my possession? 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but I have to go down to Cortina.' My voice sounded cold and unfriendly.

The corners of her mouth drooped in mock disappointment and there was a hint of laughter in her dark eyes. She knocked back her drink and came towards me. Her ski boots made hardly a sound on the bare boards. She could have danced in them. 'You shall not escape me so easily,' she said, and with a ripple of laughter, she tucked her slim brown hand under my arm. 'I too must go back to Cortina. You will not refuse to escort me?' She did not wait for an answer, but exclaimed, 'Oh — why are you English so stiff? You do not laugh. You are not gay. You are afraid of women. You are so reserved and so damned dignified.' She laughed. 'But you are nice. You have — how shall I say? — an air. And it is nice, your air. Now, you will escort me to Cortina — yes?' She had her head cocked on one side and there was an impish gleam in her eyes that was quite disturbing. 'Please do not look so serious, Mr Blair. I will not seduce you on the way down.' She sighed. 'Once — yes. But now — one gets old, you know.' She shrugged her shoulders and walked across to her skis.

'I am afraid it will be a question of you escorting me, Contessa,' I apologised as I fixed my skis. 'It is two years since I did any skiing.'

'Do not worry,' she said. 'It will come back. And Cortina is not a difficult run. You need to do a lot of stemming on the first part. After that it is a straight run. Are you ready?' She was standing poised on the slope that led into the fir woods.

My feet felt very clumsy. I remembered what Joe had said that morning about his skis feeling like a couple of canoes. That is just what mine felt like. I wished I had not told her that I was going into Cortina. 'Yes, I'm ready,' I said, and slithered across the belvedere to the start of the run.

She laid a slim, white-gloved hand on my arm. Her mood changed. 'I think we are going to become good friends,' she said. 'I shall call you Neil. It is such a nice name. And you had better call me — Carla.' She gave me a quick glance to see that the point had registered and then, with a smile and a flash of sticks, she plunged down into the dark firs. Whilst I was still hesitating on the brink of the run, her cry of 'liberal' floated back to me from the woods, telling me that already she had reached the point where the ski track from Monte Cristallo joins the Col da Varda-Cortina run.

I thrust myself forward with my sticks, saw my ski points tilt on to the slope and then I was hurtling through the cold air, my skis biting deeply on the frozen surface of the run. I took it slowly, snow-ploughing on the steeper slopes so that my ankles ached and stemming hard on the bends. The track was not really steep. But to my unaccustomed skis, it seemed precipitous as it wound down through the black trunks of the firs. I had no time to think about the Contessa's reason for that sudden admission of identity. Brain and muscle were alike concentrated on getting down the run.

Halfway down to the road I found the Contessa waiting for me in a patch of sunlight. She looked a ghostly figure in her white ski suit, which was cream-coloured against the purer white of the snow. I nerved myself for a half-Christi and it came off. I stopped dead beside her in a flurry of ice-crisp snow. A little wobbly it was true, but still I had done it and it takes quite a bit of nerve to try it, if you haven't been on skis for a long time and aren't particularly good anyway.

'Bravo!' she applauded. She had a cigarette in her mouth and was holding the packet out to me.

I took one. I was feeling very pleased with myself. I had been trying to show off and her quietly voiced 'bravo!' gave me immense satisfaction. My hand was trembling with the nervous excitement of the effort as I lit her cigarette.

There was a short silence between us. It was not an embarrassed silence. It was more the silence of two people thinking out what line they are going to take. It was very quiet in the woods and the sun was warm. My body glowed and tingled. The cigarette was Turkish and the scent of it was an exotic intrusion in that solitude of snow and fir. My brain was working fast. I knew what she was going to ask. That was why she had stopped for a smoke. And I had to think of some natural explanation of how I had come by that photograph. How had Engles got hold of it? I glanced at her. She was watching me covertly through a veil of smoke. She was expecting me to say something. I nerved myself to break the silence between us. 'So that was your photograph?' I said, hoping that my voice did not sound nervous.