Henry digested this piece of information in silence. He did not refer to the width of the road again.
It was exactly thirty-five minutes after leaving the Bella Vista that the car pulled up in a spray of snow outside the Police Station at Immenfeld. An Austrian policeman was waiting at the door.
"We contacted Capitano Spezzi a few minutes ago," he said. "He has gone to the ski-lift."
Another two minutes, and Henry, Spezzi and the driver were at the head of the ski-lift queue—much to the irritation of the sportsmen of Immenfeld. Never had a chair-lift seemed to move so slowly, but in fact it was only ten minutes later that they reached the top, slung their skis on their shoulders, and started the long climb up through the woods.
The driver had described the footpath as steep. Henry reflected bitterly that "vertical" would have been an apter word. Here and there, rudimentary steps had been hacked out to make progress easier, but these were icy and treacherous, even for a man in ski boots. Henry prided himself on keeping in good physical condition—he played squash regularly all the year round, swam, and kept his hand in at cricket: but beside these mountain-bred Italians he felt like an obese octogenarian. Gasping for breath, he struggled despairingly to keep up with them, his skis growing heavier by the moment and cutting cruelly into his shoulders. The whole world narrowed itself down into that twisting, back-breaking path, into the next step, and then the next. On and on, up and up, Henry plodded and scrambled, every muscle crying out for relief, his breath coming in noisy gulps, his throat dry and his legs leaden. It was at the moment when he felt he could go no further without a rest that the trees suddenly began to thin out, and Spezzi, who was leading, stopped and called out, "There they are!"
Henry panted up to join the other two, and they stood for a moment, hidden in the shadow of the trees, looking upwards. Through the sparse, dark columns of the firs, the gleaming expanse of snow soared up dazzlingly to the ridge, high above. And on the slope were four tiny figures. It was too far away to see which was which: they looked like black ants on the mountain-side, and it flashed across Henry's mind that Pietro must have decided not to wear his usual red anorak. The four skiers were coming down at speed, their skis cutting crisp, weaving tracks in the virgin snow.
"Put your skis on," said Spezzi, sharply. "No use trying to climb without them in soft snow. You have skins? w he added, to Henry.
"No."
"We'll have to go ahead then. Keep up as best you can."
Feverishly, Henry fumbled to get his skis on. Before he had secured the first one, Spezzi and the carabinieri had started off up the slope, climbing with amazing rapidity as the bristles of coarse fur on the underside of their skis gripped the snow. Henry snapped down the clip that tightened the binding of his second ski, and went after them.
High above, the four skiers swooped downwards like birds in flight, turning gracefully one after the other, and sending up gossamer snow-sprays in their wake. Then Henry saw that the leading skier was gesticulating to the others with a flourish of ski-sticks—it looked like a warning of suddenly-perceived danger. Abruptly, all four turned sharply to the left, and gathered speed. At the same instant, a fifth figure appeared on the ridge. It stood poised for a moment, and then took off, gracefully as a diver, traversing the mountain in a series of swift turns. Little by little, the pursuer gained ground on the other four. All were very much closer now, and faintly Henry heard a shout, repeated over and over again.
"Achiung! Stop! Stop!"
Suddenly, completely without warning, the leading skier swung into a tight right-handed turn.
"Achtung!"
The other three heard at last, turned at high speed, and came to a halt in three simultaneous fountains of flying snow. But the leading skier only gathered speed. Now it was a chase between the first and the last—the hunter and the hunted: and at that moment Spezzi and the carabinieri came out of the shelter of the trees and into the open. The leading skier saw them, and turned like lightning. His pursuer turned, too. Henry, struggling to make progress up the slope, heard a voice, a thin scream on the wind.
"I can do it!"
Henry stopped climbing and stood stock-still, just in the shadow of the trees, and watched, with a terrible fascination. Little by little, foot by foot, the pursuer seemed to be gaining ground on his quarry. Then the slim, black figure of the leading skier accelerated, as though propelled by some superhuman force of desperation, and the distance between the two^widened again. One after the other they streaked their zig-zag course down the white mountain— tracing out a grim pattern of death and despair with the precision and beauty of ballet dancers, playing the last act of an evil drama against the incongruous backdrop of diamond-bright snow and dazzling sunshine. Only the mountain peaks, implacable and relentless as avenging Furies, matched the high and terrible spirit of a race in which the stakes were life itself.
Slowly, inexorably, the hunter gained on his quarry again. When the two were almost abreast, the leading figure suddenly, without warning, did a spectacular jump-turn, changing direction completely and heading for the shelter of the dense forest far away from the piste that led to Immenfeld. His pursuer, caught by surprise, attempted to follow, was thrown off balance, and fell. For a moment, there was nothing to be seen but a helpless flailing of ski-sticks, while the exultant quarry sped on towards the trees. Then the second skier was on his feet again—but it seemed that his chances of overtaking had gone for ever.
It was then that Henry and the other watchers saw something that was to haunt all of them for the rest of their lives. For suddenly, the pursuer was no longer zig-zagging down the mountain in a series of turns, following the other's tracks: instead, the crouched, black figure was coming straight down the precipitous slope like a thunderbolt, a human body aimed like a bullet from a gun. There was a sickening, splintering crash at the moment of collision. Then both were down in the snow—skis, sticks and bodies inextricably tangled. They seemed to be struggling together, as they rolled helplessly down the mountain-side: and then, without warning, they both disappeared.
Spezzi had stopped, and Henry panted up to come abreast of him. Curtly, Spezzi said to the cardbinieri, "Tell the others to stay where they are."For the other three skiers, who had watched the chase, motionless, were now starting to move slowly down the mountain.
"Come," said Spezzi to Henry. He led the way over the snow to the spot where the skiers had vanished.. ,As Henry followed, some way behind, he saw that Spezzi was standing quite still, looking down.
"Take care," said the Capitano.
Henry took a tentative step forward, and then froze with horror as he saw that what had appeared to be merely a rolling ridge in the snow was in fact the lip of a deep crevasse that opened at his very feet.
"The Baron?" he said.
"I fear so," said Spezzi.
Henry stepped cautiously forward to stand beside Spezzi, and looked down. On the snowy floor of the ravine, fifty feet below them, lay two bodies, still and broken. The tall, thin figure of the Baron was spread-eagled face downwards: beside him, on his back, his body twisted grotesquely but his face miraculously unharmed, lay Pietro Vespi.
A shadow fell across the snow beside Spezzi, and Henry looked up to see that Gerda was standing there. Spezzi turned to her, and for once did not seem to resent the fact that his orders had been disobeyed. In a quiet voice, the Capitano said, "Fraulein, can you ever forgive me for what I thought of you?"
Gerda did not answer, and Henry saw that she was crying.
"Fraulein—"began the Capitano, but Gerda said, very softly, "I am all right, Herr Capitano. They are happy tears."
Henry turned away, and began to ski slowly down the mountain towards Immenfeld.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was A sombre, chastened group of people who greeted Henry when he eventually got back from Immenfeld that evening. There was no sign of the Knipfers, and Gerda was with Maria-Pia: but everyone else was in the bar, talking in hushed and shocked voices. Emm
y was naturally bombarded with questions, to which all she could do was to answer, truthfully, "I don't know any more than you do, except that Henry knew the truth about Pietro this morning. You'll have to wait until he gets back."
"I can't believe it,"Roger had said, over and over again. "Pietro, of all people. And to think that he tried to kill us..."
"No doubt about it," assented the Colonel, gruffly. u Told us we were going off the piste, and that if we kept to the left there was a straight schuss down to the tree-path."
"And of course we believed him,"Roger added. "We'd only done the run once before, after all, and in quite different conditions. We were going flat out—we'd never have stopped in time. As it was, we were on the edge of the ravine when the Baron shouted..."
"And to think of all the things we said about the Baron," put in Jimmy. "I feel like a heel..."
"But Pietro..." said Caro, in helpless bewilderment. "Emmy, how could it have been Pietro...?"
And so the discussion went on, endlessly and in circles.
When Henry walked in, there was a dead silence. They were all shocked to see how deadly tired he looked, and how old. He went over to the table where they were all sitting, kissed Emmy, and pulled up a chair.
"I'd like a whisky," he said.
All the men leapt to their feet, and Jimmy beat Roger to the bar by one second. Henry drank, gratefully, and then said, "I suppose you want an explanation. I think you deserve one." He glanced round the table, and then said, "Where's Gerda?"
Emmy told him, and he nodded. Then he said, "It's a complicated story to tell, but it's very simple really. I suppose you'd like me to start at the beginning.-?'
There was a chorus of assent, and Henry went on: "The key to the whole thing, of course, was the character and career of Fritz Hauser. I dare say you all know by now that the major part of his income came from peddling dope."
They all nodded, and Mrs. Buckfast blushed richly, probably for the first and last time in her life.
"Hauser," Henry continued, "had an easy and prosperous life in Berlin and then in Rome. He was a qualified doctor, and he used his practice as a cover for his real business of selling cocaine to disreputable characters with more money than sense. It was only when his connection with the Caroni case made it too hot for him to continue that he decided to take up smuggling. He was born and brought up in this valley, and he knew very well how perfectly it was situated for smuggling by ski in the winter and by climbers in summer. His first move was to get complete control of this hotel by installing as manager a man who was in his power. This became his headquarters. At first, I think, he only envisaged the possibility of running dope over the Austrian border—he had plenty of ready customers, for he had once practised in Vienna. The genuine holiday-makers were here merely as necessary camouflage. Afterwards, he also got the idea of using some of them to transport the stuff to England for him. But that's something we needn't go into now: fortunately, that end of the operation didn't succeed too well."
Avoiding the embarrassed eyes of Roger and Mrs. Buck-fast, he went on quickly. "For the Austrian operation, he needed the services of a first-class skier and climber and he knew from his early recollections of Santa Chiara that the Vespi family was likely to be able to supply one with all the skill, nerve and unscrupulousness he needed. He must have been delighted to find that both the boys, Giulio and Pietro, had inherited from their grandfather not only a reckless physical courage, but also a passion for money which he could easily exploit. This obsession with wealth had skipped a generation, for there was no sign of it in Mario. Anyhow, Hauser chdse Giulio—the elder and the more brilliant skier. From the first, I felt certain that Giulio's death was a vitally important feature in this drama. Of course, everyone in the village knew how he made his money, although I don't for a moment suppose that they knew just what an unsavoury trade he was in. Smuggling, in these parts is generally regarded as a sport rather than a crime."
"But what made you suspect all this in the beginning?" Jimmy put in. "After all, anyone can have a skiing accident."
"There was a small, nagging inconsistency about the account of his death that worried me," said Henry. He looked at Roger. "I think you know what I mean."
Roger nodded. "The ski-sticks," he said.
"Exactly," said Henry. "One ski was knocked off when Giulio fell, and it obviously careered off by itself and was buried in a snowbank. That's perfectly understandable. But we were also told that Giulio's sticks were never found. Now, apart from the fact that the leather loop round the wrist makes it difficult to lose a ski-stick, it's elementary that anybody who took a fall like that would hang on to his sticks for dear life. No, the sticks must have gone over the brink of the ravine with Giulio. Which means that they were found, by someone. As soon as I heard that Pietro had been the first person to discover his brother's body I knew that he must have found the sticks and hidden them."
"But why on earth should he have done that?" asked Caro.
"That's exactly what I asked myself. The answer is very simple. Ski-sticks are hollow, and you can get an extremely valuable cargo of cocaine into each one. It was an ingenious and foolproof method. Giulio would ski down into Immenfeld, go to one of the ski shops and exchange his sticks for another pair, similarly constructed with a screw-top opening under the leather handle. He was paid, and returned to Santa Chiara for his next consignment."
"Did you get the man in the ski shop?" Roger asked.
"Yes," said Henry, shortly. "Your inquiries were extremely useful. They told me which shop to go to."
"It was that little rat-faced fellow, wasn't it?" said Roger. "He looked scared as hell when I started asking if he ever took orders for specially-made sticks. But I don't see how I helped."
"Emmy made inquiries at both shops," said Henry. "One of them admitted quite openly that you'd been asking about ski-sticks. But rat-face told her you'd gone in to have your skis waxed. That sounded pretty silly to me. I know you always keep your wax in your anorak pocket—and even if you'd forgotten yours, Colonel Buckfast would have had some. What was your idea, by the way? A little free-lance detection?"
Roger looked uncomfortable. "I was in a pretty tricky spot, as you know," he said. "I thought if I could get evidence on Hauser..." He stopped, and then said, "I didn't think there was any harm in it."
"But tell us about Pietro," Caro persisted.
"Pietro," said Henry, "was considerably more ruthless than Giulio, and he was also insanely jealous of his brother's money. I would like to think that he climbed down into the ravine in a genuine attempt to help Giulio—but when he saw the broken sticks, and what they contained, everything became clear to him. He took the sticks, as I said, and hid them. He knew that he had a valuable consignment of cocaine in his possession—and he was determined to get the full market price for it. His only trouble was that he did not know how to dispose of it. Giulio had had the sense to keep the details of his expeditions a dead secret. So Pietro resolved to approach Hauser, and get himself taken on as Giulio's successor. In fact, I doubt if he had to bother. My guess is that Hauser came to him with that very proposition. Of course, it was Giulio's death that made Hauser change hjs plans and stay on in Santa Chiara. He wanted to organise another courier before he left, and Pietro was the obvious person."
"Then why in heaven's name did Pietro kill him?"the Colonef rasped out.
"And how?" added Jimmy. "Pietro was with us in the Olympia that evening, and he stayed on there after we left."
"And what about the gun?" added Caro.
Henry looked at them sadly. "You've got it all wrong," he said "Pietro didn't kill Fritz Hauser."
"You mean ... somebody else..." Roger began, and then stopped. There was an uneasy silence.
Henry said, "The one thing about Hauser's murder that struck me most forcibly was the fantastic element of chance that would have been involved if anybody on the ski-lift had shot him. Goodness knows, enough of you had motives—and that clouded the issue. I needn't
go into details, but at least five of the people on the lift that evening must have been delighted to see Hauser dead. The fact remains, however, that none of you could possibly have known that he would be coming down as you went up. As Gerda so rightly pointed out, the obvious assumption was that he had left the hotel much earlier. The only people in the hotel who definitely knew he would be going down at that hour were the Knipfers, Rossati and Mrs. Buckfast."
"Are you trying to suggest—?" began Mrs. Buckfast, outraged.
Henry held up his hand. "I said, the only people in the hotel. There were two others. The Baron and Mario."
"How did they know?" Jimmy demanded.
"The Baron had arranged to meet Hauser here at the hotel if he could get to Santa Chiara in time—he was driving up from Innsbruck. Hauser had agreed to postpone his departure until the last possible moment."
"I see," said Jimmy. "And Mario?"
"Hauser lunched with the Vespis on the day he was killed," said Henry. "He also chatted to Mario in the morning about his plans. It is reasonable to assume that he knew when Hauser would be using the lift."
"But none of those people could have don^ it," said Jimmy, with a worried frown. "The Baron Had only just arrived in the village. The Knipfers were all in the hotel and so was Mrs. Buckfast."
"The first conclusion that I came to," said Henry, "was that Hauser was not shot on the ski-lift. It followed that he was already dead when he was put into his chair. There was another small piece of evidence that confirmed my point of view. Gerda mentioned that Hauser was swaying in his chair, but that the safety-arm prevented him from falling out. But, according to Rossati, Hauser was so used to the ski-lift that he never used the safety-arm. Obviously it had been put in position to keep his body securely in the chair."
"You mean, then, that he was shot before he left the hotel?" said Caro, in a voice full of horror.
"I considered that possibility," said Henry, "but it wouldn't do. Hauser was seen leaving the hotel both by Fraulein Knipfer and Beppi, the porter. It was too much to suspect them of being in league. No, Hauser was shot at the top of the ski-lift."
Dead Men Don't Ski Page 26
