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.
She drew deeply at her cigarette. 'Yes,' she said and her voice was pitched strangely low. 'You were quite right. I was once called Carla Rometta.' She hesitated I then. I waited and at length she said, 'You seem to know more about my affairs than I like in a stranger. For we have not met before, you know.'
'No,' I said. 'We have not met before.'
'You lied to me.'
'I had to open the conversation somehow.'
'So, we have not met. Yet you have my photograph. That picture was taken — oh, a long time ago, in Berlin.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It was taken by a Berlin photographer.'
'May I see it please?'
'I have not got it on me,' I lied.
She gave me a quick, searching glance. 'I see,' she said. 'I find it strange that you should carry my photograph when we have not met before. You will explain to me the reason — yes?' She was watching me. I concentrated on my cigarette. 'I had signed it?' she asked. 'And written on it also?'
I nodded.
'What had I written — please tell me.' There was a tremor in her voice.
'It was to Heinrich,' I told her.
A sigh escaped her lips and she was silent for a moment. Then she said, 'You seem to know much of my affairs. Stefan tells me that you were at the auction this morning and that you know he was trying to buy Col da Varda on my behalf. How did you know that?'
'Edoardo Mancini told me,' I replied.
'That ugly old pig!' She gave a short laugh. 'Nothing can happen in Cortina but he knows about it.
He is a tarantula. Did he tell you who bought it? That little man who bid against Stefan, he was only a lawyer.'
'No,' I said. 'He did not tell me. But he said the lawyer belonged to a Venetian firm that handled the financial affairs of big industrial concerns. I think he feared that a powerful hotel or tourist syndicate had bought it.'
'Perhaps,' she said. 'But it is strange. Big financiers do not pay fancy prices for places like Col da Varda.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'You ask yourself why I was prepared to pay so much, is that not so?'
'It certainly interests me,' I told her.
'But why?' she asked, and there was a note of irritation in her voice. 'Why are you so interested in my affairs? You are here to write a story for the cinema — so everyone is told. But you have my picture. You know my real name. You are interested enough in Col da Varda to attend the auction. What is all this to you? I insist that you tell me.'
I had my story ready now. That reference to my writing a script had given me the clue. The thing fell neatly into place. 'It's quite true about my writing a script for a film,' I said. 'And because I am a writer it is natural for me to be interested in anything unusual that I find happening around me. A writer bases everything he writes on people he has met, things that have happened to him, places that he's seen, stories that are told him. Everything an author writes, he has either experienced or seen or read about. I had your photograph. I did not know you or anything about you.
You were just a signature to me, linked with the name Heinrich. And then I read that Heinrich Stelben was associated with a dancer named Carla Rometta. I meet you within a few hours of reading that. And then, next day, I find you prepared to pay a fantastic sum for Col da Varda, a property that was once owned by Heinrich Stelben. You must admit, I could hardly fail to be interested in such a strange sequence of events.'
She did not speak for a moment. She stood there, looking at me, her cigarette forgotten and a puzzled frown on her face. She seemed to accept the story, for all she eventually asked was, 'And the picture — how did you obtain that?'
I said, 'I have explained my interest. The only thing I haven't explained is how I came by the picture. Before I tell you that, perhaps you would be willing to satisfy my curiosity and tell me why you were prepared to pay as much as four million lire for Col da Varda? I am sorry,' I added. 'I have no right to ask — it is just that I am intrigued. It all seems so extraordinary.'
'I understand,' she said. 'You make a bargain — I tell you why I wanted Col da Varda, and you tell me how the picture walked into your pocket. That is not gallant of you, for you are asking me to expose my heart. You have no right to ask me to do that. Whereas, I think I have a right to ask you about the picture — a picture I gave a long time ago to a very dear friend.' Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper.
I began to feel uncomfortable. After all it was none of my business. She had presumably been Heinrich Stelben's mistress. And she had a perfect right to go around buying up slittovias at absurd prices as often as she wished. And I intended lying to her anyway about how I had come by the photograph, just as I had lied to her already about my interest in the matter.
I was on the point of apologising and suggesting we continue down to Cortina, when she said, 'But I do not mind. So long as you tell no one. You promise?'
I nodded.
'The picture was taken just before the war. I was a dancer in Berlin. Heinrich was of the Gestapo. He was already married. We had to be careful. But we were in love and we were happy. Then the war came and I stayed with him always. We were in many countries — Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, Hungary and then Italy. It was lovely.' Her voice was soft again now and her big dark eyes were looking past me into the sombre depths of the firs. Then Germany collapsed. Heinrich was arrested in a village on Lake Como. But he escaped and soon we were together again. He bought Col da Varda because—' Her eyes suddenly switched to my face searchingly. 'I wonder whether you will understand? You English are so cold. He bought it because that was where we had first met each other. It was January 1939 — it was a warm sunny day and we sat out on the belvedere for hours, drinking and talking. For the rest of our holiday we met up there every day. And then, later that year, I followed him to Berlin, where he had arranged for me a contract to dance at one of the best night clubs in the city. For nearly three months we owned Col da Varda. It was heaven. Then those filthy carabinieri arrested him whilst I was in Venice. When he was sent to the Regina Coeli, I went to Rome to arrange his escape. But then he was handed over to the British. That was the end.' Her voice was no more than a breath, a sigh for something irrevocably lost.
She shrugged her shoulders and when she spoke again it was in her normal deep husky tones. 'That part of my life is finished. I shall not be faithful to Heinrich. I am not the faithful type. I have had too many men in my life. Even when he was alive, I was not faithful. But I loved him. That will sound strange to you — that I can sleep with several men and yet love only the one. But there it is. And that is why I wanted to buy Col da Varda. We had planned to convert the rifugio into a lovely little villa in the mountains. He had started on the alterations when he was arrested. Now that he is dead, I wanted it for my own. I have plenty of money. Heinrich did well in the Gestapo. He left me money in nearly every capital in Europe — real money — houses and jewellery — not bank accounts and worthless paper currency.' She looked up at me. 'There, now I have told you everything.'
I could not meet the reproachful gaze of her eyes. I felt embarrassed. She need not have told me everything in such detail. I sought refuge in a straight-forward question. 'Why did you have Stefan Valdini bid for you at the auction?'
'Why, why, why!' She laughed at me. 'You are so full of questions. Why? Because I wished no publicity.'
'Of course,' I said. 'But why Valdini? He is — I don't know — he looks a crook.'
She laughed. 'But of course, my dear. How would he look otherwise? He is a crook. Poor Stefan! I am so sorry for him. And he is so faithful to me.' She was looking at me with a roguish smile now. 'You do not like Stefan, eh? He dresses too cheap — too loud. Oh, but you should have seen him before the war. He had a wardrobe of sixty suits and he had three hundred ties. Every suit, every tie more brilliant than the next. But now he has not so much. It was the Germans — they took many things from him. You will hear all about it. Now he has only twenty suits and eighty ties. He will tell you. He is not the man he was. He was quite a figure, you know, in the Eastern Mediterranean at one time.' She put her head quickly on one side and glanced up at me. 'Would it shock you to know something? Once I was one of his gairls.' Her imitation of the way Valdini said 'gairls' was perfect. 'There, now I have shocked you,' she said with a soft gurgle. 'But I have told you so much about myself, there is no reason why you should not know that. But he fell in love with me. Imagine — he was fool enough to fall in love with one of his own girls. Poor Stefan! He has never got over it. And now he is — how do you say? — on the down-slope. That makes me sorry for him.' She shrugged her shoulders and laughed quite gaily. There! I have answered all your interminable whys. Now you shall answer mine. How did you get my picture?'
'You will not believe it,' I said. 'It is too improbable. It was given me just before I left London,' I told her. 'We were in a bar, drinking. A friend of one of the party joined us. He had drunk a lot. When he heard I was returning to Italy, he gave me the photograph. He said he had got it from a German prisoner. He said it was of no interest to him now he was back. I was welcome to it. And if it intrigued me as much as it had intrigued him, he hoped I'd meet the girl. He never had. And that is all there is to it,' I finished lamely.
She looked at me searchingly. 'What was his name?' she asked.
'I don't know,' I replied. 'He was just a stray that joined our party.'
There was silence between us for a moment. The story seemed very thin. But perhaps its very thinness convinced her. 'Yes, it is possible. It was the British who questioned him after his arrest on Como. And why did you keep the picture with you? Did you like it so much?' She was laughing at me.
'Perhaps I thought I might meet the original,' I told her.
She smiled. 'And what do you think, now that you have met the original?' She laughed. 'But that is unfair. You have only just left your wife, is that not so? And you have met the Scarlet Woman. You are so English, my dear — so delightfully English. But we are friends — yes?' She took my arm happily. 'And you will be kind to my little Stefan, eh? Poor Stefan! He is such a frightful little man. But he cannot help himself. And when he likes people he is kind. I hope you will find him kind, Neil?' I don't know whether she was amused at her use of my Christian name or at the possibility of my finding poor Stefan unkind. 'Avanti!' she said. 'We have talked so long, we must go fast to Cortina. I am having tea with a lovely Hungarian man.' And her expression as she said this was the equivalent of sticking out her tongue at me and my English ideas.
I had more confidence in my skis now and we made the run to Cortina at a quiet, steady pace. It was a fairly straightforward run. We crossed the road on the Cortina side of the Albergo Tre Croci and dropped down a wooded valley till we joined the Faloria Olympic run. I left Carla at her hotel, the Majestic. 'We will meet again," she said, as she let her hand rest in mine. 'But please do not tell any one about the things I have told you. I do not know why I told you so much — perhaps it was because you have a kind and understanding nature. And don't forget to be nice to Stefan.' She laughed and withdrew her hand. 'Arrivederci.' And she disappeared round the back of the hotel to remove her skis.
I went to the ufficio delta posta, thinking what a strange and disturbing woman she was. Heinrich must have been a gay devil to have maintained his hold on a woman like Carla even after his death.
After dispatching the cable to Engles, I ran into Keramikos. The Greek was just going into a shop to purchase wood carvings. I joined him and bought a pair of goat-herd book ends for Peggy and some little wooden animals for Michael. They were beautifully carved by local craftsmen. 'I like these shops,' Keramikos said. 'It makes me think of the old folk tales. In so many of the stories the little carved figures come to life during the night. I would like to be in the shop when that happens.'
'Are you going straight back?' I asked him as we left the shop.
'I think so,' he said. 'But it is not time yet. We have half an hour to wait for the bus. I suggest some tea.'
I readily agreed. It gave me an opportunity to find out what sort of a man he was and whether he had any particular reason for staying at Col da Varda. We went to a little cafe opposite the bus stop. It was hot in the cafe and very full of people relaxed after a strenuous day. A waitress brought us tea and I began to consider how best to lead the conversation round to himself. But before I had decided on my approach, he said, 'It is strange, that chalet. Have you considered what brings us there? Your friend, Wesson — he is simple. He is there for his film. But Valdini. Why does Valdini live up there? He is not an enthusiastic skier. He likes women and bright lights. He is a bird of the night. And there is Mayne. What is Mayne doing at Col da Varda? He is a sportsman. But he also likes women. You would not expect a man of his type to bury himself in a hut on a mountainside, except for exercise. But he does not go off on his skis at dawn and return at nightfall just to sleep. No, he goes to see an auction, as you did. It interests me so much why people do things.' He was staring at me unwinkingly from behind his thick-lensed glasses.
I nodded. 'Yes, it is interesting,' I agreed. And I added, 'And then there is yourself.'
'Ah, yes — then there is myself.' He nodded his round head and smiled as though amused at the thought of himself living at Col da Varda.
'Tell me, Mr Keramikos,' I said, 'why are you living there? Valdini says he thinks you prefer Cortina.'
He sighed. 'Perhaps I do. But then I also like solitude. There has been too much excitement in my life. It is quiet at Col da Varda. No, I am not going to talk about myself, Mr Blair. I prefer to gossip with you. Valdini? Valdini stays there for a purpose. He was to have bought the place for his friend, the Contessa. But I hear he was outbid this morning. Now, this is what interests me — will he continue to stay at the rifugio now that the place has been sold?'
'What's your guess?' I asked.
'My guess? I do not guess. I know. He will stay. Just as I know that you do not write a story for the films.'
His eyes were watching me closely. I felt annoyed. The conversation was being taken out of my hands. 'I have not written much yet,' I said, 'because I am absorbing the background.'
'Ah, yes — the background. Yes, that is a good explanation, Mr Blair. A writer can always explain anything he does, however strange, by saying that he seeks the background or the plot or the characters. But do you need an auction for your plot? Have you no better characters in your mind than the Contessa Forelli? You see, I observe. And what I am observing is that you are more interested in what happens around you at Col da Varda than in your skiing story. Is that not so?'
'I am certainly interested,' I said defensively. Then with more attack: 'For instance, I am interested in you, Mr Keramikos.' He raised his eyebrows and smiled. 'You knew Mayne,' I said, 'before you met him last night.' It was a random thrust. I was not sure of myself.
He set down his teacup. 'Ah, you noticed that, eh? You are very observant, Mr Blair.' He considered for a moment. 'I wonder why you are so observant?' he mused. He drank thoughtfully as though considering the matter. 'Wesson is not observant. He is just a cameraman and he works hard taking pictures. Valdini, I know about. And Mayne, too. But you — I am not sure about you.' He seemed to hesitate. 'I will tell you something,' he said suddenly. 'And you will do well to think of it. You are quite right. I recognised Mayne. I had known him before. You do not know much about him, eh? How does he strike you?'
'He seems a pleasant enough fellow,' I replied. 'He is well read, friendly — has an attractive personality.'
He smiled. 'An engaging personality, eh? And he has travelled. He was in the United States during the prohibition days. Later he returned to England and in 1942 he joined the British Army.' He considered a moment. Then he said, 'Would it interest you to know, Mr Blair, that he deserted whilst serving in Italy?'
'How do you know?' I asked.
'He was useful to me in Greece,' Keramikos replied. 'For a time he operated a deserter gang in Naples, a bad crowd, composed of a variety of nationalities. They were cleaned up by the military police in the end. That was when he came to Athens. He operated on his own there as an UNRRA official. He was a very successful UNRRA official.' He smiled and took out a heavy silver watch. 'We must go,' he said, 'or you will miss your bus.' And he rose to his feet and paid the bill. I got up. The hum of voices, the clatter of crockery — all the sounds of the cafe — thrust themselves into my mind so that I wondered whether I had really understood what the Greek had told me.
Outside it was cold and the setting sun lit up the Dolomite peaks above the little town so that they flamed against the delicate blue of the sky. 'What was he doing for you in Greece?' I asked as we walked over to the bus stop.
But he held up his hand. 'I have said enough,' he answered. 'You are observant, Mr Blair. But do not be too observant. This is not England. The Austrian frontier is only a few miles away. Beyond lies Germany. Behind us is France. You were here in Italy before — but with your Army. You were part of a great organisation. But you are a civilian now and this is a strange, sick Europe. Things happen. Authority is a poor, bewildered official when things are out of control. Beyond all this luxury and all these men and women here who have grown fat on war, there is a vast human jungle. In that jungle, there is fear and starvation. It is the survival of the fittest. I tell you about Mayne because I would not like you to step outside this nice civilised Cortina and find yourself in that jungle.' He smiled at me as though he had passed some quite innocent remark. 'Tell Aldo for me, please, that I shall not be in to dinner.'
'But I thought you were coming back with me on the bus?' I said.
'No. I said that because I wished to talk to you alone. Remember your English saying — it takes all men to make a world. Remember also, please, that the world is not a good world just now. Good-night, Mr Blair.'
I watched his thick-set, powerful figure thrust its way through the crowded pavement till it was lost to view. Then I got on to the waiting bus with only my somewhat startled thoughts for company.
Joe Wesson was the only person in the rifugio when I returned. He looked at me sourly. 'I'd like to know what the hell you're playing at, Neil!' he grunted as he handed me a drink.
'Because I went to an auction this morning instead of getting on with the script?' I asked.
'Because, as far as I can see,' he replied, 'you haven't done a damn stroke of work since you arrived here. What's the matter? Won't your mind settle down to it?'
'I'll catch up after dinner,' I said. 'I've got the first part all worked out.'
'Good!' he said. 'I was beginning to get worried. Know what it's like. Seen other fellows in the same fix. It's not like camera work. It's got to be in your mind first.' For a man in such a hard business as films, he had an extraordinarily kind nature. 'How did the auction go?'
I told him.
'So that's why Valdini was so blasted miserable when I came in,' he said as I finished. 'Sicilian gangster, hm? Just what he looks like. You'd better keep clear of that damned Contessa of his, Neil. I went to Sicily once. All dust and flies — it was summer. Got involved with a girl at the pensione. Her boy-friend came at me with a knife. But I was quicker then than I am now.'
We were the only two in to dinner. The big bar room seemed large and quiet — almost watchful. Our voices were never raised. We did not talk much during the meal. I was conscious of a nervous strain. I found myself wondering what the other three were doing — wondering what was happening in the world outside, wondering what was going to happen here. It was as though the hut, perched on the vast white shoulder of Monte Cristallo, was waiting for something.
I took myself off to my room immediately after dinner. I had to give Joe the impression I was doing some work. I wanted to work. I sat there at my typewriter, thinking how desperate Peggy and I had been before I had run into Engles in London that morning. I did not want that to happen again. This was my chance. All I had to do was produce a script that Engles would like.
But it just would not come. Every idea that came into my mind was over-shadowed and crowded out by the thought of what was happening here in this hut. It was impossible to concentrate on fiction when the facts right under my nose were so absorbing. For the hundredth time I tried to figure out why Engles was interested in the place. Valdini and the Contessa were now clear in my mind. But Mayne and Keramikos? Was it true what Keramikos had told me about Mayne? And why had he told me? Why had he warned me? And who had bought Col da Varda, and why?
I stared blankly at the keys of my typewriter, smoking cigarette after cigarette in a frenzy of frustration. Why didn't I ignore the whole thing and get on with the script? I cursed my honesty and damned Engles for employing me as watch-dog to a group of highly questionable characters and not as a straightforward script writer.
It was cold in the room, even with the electric heater on. The moon had risen and, beyond the reflected gleam of the unshaded electric light bulb, I could see the frosted white of the world outside my window. It came right up to the window, that cold, unfriendly world. The snow was thick on the window-sill — thick and glistening white. And from the roof a great curve of snow hung suspended like icing on a cake, ending in a long, pointed icicle.
At length I gave it up. It was no good thinking about writing a script when so many queries crowded my brain. I began to hammer out on the typewriter yet another report for Engles, this time on Keramikos. Whilst I was recalling that tea-time conversation, I heard the slittovia. It came up and went down again three separate times within an hour. I heard voices downstairs in the bar. Then, about ten, there was a tramp of heavy boots on the stair boards, voices said good-night, doors banged. Joe poked his head round the door of my room. 'How's it going?' he enquired.
'All right, thanks,' I told him.
'Good. It's all clear downstairs now. They've all gone to bed. It's warmer down there, if you're working late.'
I thanked him. He went into his room. I heard him moving about for several minutes. Then all was quiet. The hut had settled down to sleep. The sound of Joe's snores began to come through the match-boarding as clear as though he were asleep in the room.
I put the lid on my typewriter and got up. I was stiff with cold. I hurried into the warmth of my bed. But I could not sleep. Thoughts kept chasing through my mind.
Whether I dozed off or not I do not know. All I know is that I was suddenly awake. And it was much later. The moon had moved round and was shining across the room on to the white enamel-ware of the wash-stand. The rhythmic snore of Joe's breathing was just the same. The hut was quiet. Yet something was different. I lay huddled in the warmth of the bedclothes looking about me, conscious of that strange watchfulness I had felt in old houses when as a child I had lain awake in the dark.
I tried to go to sleep again. But I could not. I thought of the bar downstairs. I could do with a cognac or two. I got up and put two sweaters and my ski suit on over my pyjamas. I had just finished dressing when I noticed something different about the window. I went over to it and peered out. The great overhanging mass of snow with the icicle on the end was gone. The sound of it falling must have been the cause of my waking.
I was turning away when I saw a figure moving across the belvedere. The moon gave his body a long shadow that lay across the boards of the platform. I peered down as it hurried silently down the steps and was lost to view behind the wooden balustrade. When it was gone I blinked my eyes and wondered if it had ever really been there. It had been a tall figure.
I hesitated. It was nothing to do with me. A boyfriend of Anna's perhaps. Her bright, laughing eyes might well do more than flirt with visitors as she brought them food and drinks. I looked at my watch. It was after two.
I suppose it was the fact that I was actually dressed and wide awake that determined me. I was suddenly outside my room and slipping quietly down the stairs in stockinged feet.
The large bar room was a ghostly space of silence in the wide shafts of moonlight. I crossed it quickly and opened the door. Outside it was cold and bright with the moon. I put my shoes on and tiptoed across the belvedere and down the steps on to the snow path that led up from the slittovia.
I was in shadow here, for the platform of the belvedere was higher than my head and the path ran close beside it. I stopped to consider. There was no sign of the figure I had seen from my window. The rifugio, viewed from this angle, had a perfectly straight facade. The great pine piles on which it was built were so tall that it was possible for a man to walk underneath by bending slightly. Halfway along, the pine supports ceased and the base of the hut became concrete. This was the concrete housing of the slittovia plant. It had a broad window looking straight down the sleigh track. I could see the dark square of it despite the fact that it was in shadow. Just below the window was a slit and the cable that emerged from it was just visible. Opposite the window, a wooden platform had been built out on to the actual slope of the trackway to enable passengers to alight from the sleigh.
I was cold, standing there, and I began to regard myself as more than a little foolish, wandering about in the snow after shadows at two in the morning. But just as I was considering returning to the bar for a drink, I saw a slight movement where the pine supports gave place to the concrete machine housing. I watched closely. For a while there was no further movement, but now I could make out a darker shadow against the concrete. It was the shadow of a man standing very still almost underneath the flooring of the bar.
I froze to complete stillness. I was in shadow. As long as I did not move he might not see me. I must have stayed like that for perhaps a minute, debating whether I dare risk moving right under the platform, for, if he came back towards me, he was bound to see me. Before I could make up my mind, however, the shadow began to move. It came out from underneath the rifugio and moved along the concrete face of the machine-room. He was quite clear to me now in silhouette against the white snow of the firs beyond. He was a shortish, thick-set man. He was not a bit like the man I had seen cross the belvedere. He stopped by the window of the machine-room and peered in.
I climbed quickly over the crisp-piled snow and got in under the platform. Then I made my way carefully along under the hut until I was close to the concrete section. I peered out. The man was still there, his body a dark shadow by the window.
A light suddenly shone out from the machine-room. It was the moving light of a torch and it rested for a moment on the face of the watcher. I recognised it instantly. It was Keramikos. I stepped back behind one of the supporting piles. I was only just in time. The Greek slipped back into cover. But he was not quick enough. The sound of footsteps crunched in the frosty snow and the torchlight was shone straight on to him. 'I have been expecting you.' I could not see the speaker. He was just a voice and the glare of the white circle of his torch. He spoke in German, the lighter German of Austria.
Keramikos stepped forward. 'If you were expecting me,' he replied in German, 'there's no point in my continuing this game of hide-and-seek.'
'None whatever,' was the reply. 'Come inside. You may as well look at the place whilst you're here and there are some things we might talk over.'
The beam of the torch swung away and the two figures moved beyond my line of vision. A door was closed and their voices immediately ceased.
I slipped out of my hiding-place and moved quietly to where Keramikos had been standing. I knelt down to peer in through the window, so that my head would not appear at the level expected if the torch were shone on the window again.
It was a weird scene. The torch was held so that the light of it fell full on Keramikos. His face was white in the glare of it and his shadow sprawled grotesquely on the wall behind him. They sat opposite each other on the great cable drum. The stranger was smoking, but he had his back to me, so that the slight glow as he drew on his cigarette did not show me his face. Except for the one wall, the room was in half darkness, and the machinery showed only as shadowy bulks huddled in their concrete bedding.
I remained watching till my knees began to ache. But they just sat there talking. They did not move. There were no excited gestures. They seemed quite friendly. The window had small panes set in steel frames. I could not hear a word.
I crawled across the platform and stepped over the cable. The snow crunched noisily under my feet. I was at the very top of the sleigh track. It dropped almost from under my feet, a snowy slash between the dark firs. I crossed it and went round the corner of the concrete housing to the door, which was under the wooden flooring of the rifugio. It was closed. Very carefully I lifted the latch and pulled it towards me.
Through a half inch slit I could see that the scene had not changed. They were still seated, facing each other, with Keramikos blinking like an owl in the glare of the torch. '… loosen off this cog,' the stranger was saying, still in Austrian. He shone the torch on a heavy, grease-coated cog that engaged the main driving cog on the rim of the cable drum. Then all we have to do is to knock it out when the sleigh has started down. It will be on the steepest part. There will be an accident. Then I will close the rifugio. Afterwards we can search without fear of interruption.'
'You are certain it is here?' Keramikos asked.
'Why else did Stelben buy the place? Why else did his mistress want to buy it? It's here all right.'
Keramikos nodded. Then he said, 'You didn't trust me before. Why should you trust me now? And why should I trust you?'
'Case of necessity,' was the reply.
Keramikos seemed to consider. 'It is neat,' he said. 'That would dispose of Valdini and the Contessa. And then—' He stopped abruptly. He was gazing straight at me. 'I thought you shut the door. There's a draught coming through it.' He got to his feet. The torch followed him as he moved towards the door.
I slipped quickly into the shadows among the piles. The door was thrust open and the light from the torch made the snow glisten. I peered out from behind the support that sheltered me. Keramikos was examining the ground outside the door. He bent down and felt the snow.
'Anything wrong?' The other's voice sounded hollow from the interior of the concrete room.
'No,' replied Keramikos. 'I suppose it was not latched properly.' He closed the door. It was dark again and the silence of the night drew closer to me.
A few minutes later they came out. A key grated in the lock of the door and the two shadowy figures disappeared along the path that led back to the belvedere.