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 the 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 full 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 boy-friend 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 façade. 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.
4
My Shroud is Driven Snow
I WAITED THERE for perhaps half an hour. It was very cold and rather eerie in that white silence with only the stars for company. But I was determined to take no chances. Keramikos must not see me return. And I had plenty to occupy my mind as I stood there in the chill darkness.
But at last the cold drove me in. I moved quietly, keeping to the shadows. I crossed the belvedere in the shadow of a fir tree that had crept across it, for the moon was getting low. The bar room seemed warm and friendly after the cold of the night. I crossed to the bar and poured myself a stiff, neat cognac. It was fire in my chilled stomach. I poured myself another.
‘I have been waiting for you, Mr Blair.’
I nearly dropped the glass. The voice came from the shadows in the corner by the piano. I swung round.
It was Keramikos. He was seated on the piano stool. His figure was shadowy in the darkness of the corner, but his glasses reflected the single bar light. He looked like a great toad.
‘Why?’ I asked, and my voice trembled.
‘Because I saw the print of a pair of shoes outside that door. When I touched the prints the snow was wet. It had to be either you or Valdini. Valdini’s room is next to mine. He snores. Your door was open. That was careless, I think.’ He got up. ‘Would you be so kind as to pour me a cognac. It has been cold, waiting for you. Though not as cold, doubtless, as you found it, waiting outside.’
I poured him a drink.
He came over and took it from my hand. His hand was large and hairy. It was much steadier than mine.
‘Your health,’ he said with a smile and raised the glass.
I did not feel in the mood for such a gesture.
‘Why did you wait up for me?’ I asked. ‘And where’s the Austrian fellow?’
‘The Austrian fellow?’ He peered at me through his glasses. ‘You did not see him, eh?’ He nodded as though satisfied about something. ‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘He does not know you were there. I waited up for you because there are some questions I would like to ask you.’
‘And there are a few I’d like to ask you,’ I said.
‘I’ve no doubt,’ he replied curtly. ‘But you would be a fool to expect me to answer them.’ He considered me for a moment as he poured himself another drink. ‘You speak German, eh?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You were listening to our conversation. It is not good, Mr Blair, to meddle in matters that are of no concern to you.’ His voice was quiet, his tone reasonable. It was difficult to realise that there was an implied threat.
‘Murder is a matter that concerns everybody,’ I responded sharply.
‘The slittovia, eh? So you heard that. What else did you hear?’ There was no mistaking the menace in his voice now, though the tone was still quiet.
‘God!’ I cried. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
He gazed at the drink in his glass. ‘You should not leap to conclusions, Mr Blair,’ he said. ‘You only heard part of the conversation.’
‘Listen, Keramikos,’ I said. ‘You can’t fool me by suggesting that I didn’t hear all the conversation. That little scrap was complete in itself. The Austrian was proposing cold-blooded murder.’
‘And do you know why?’
‘Because you’re searching for something,’ I snapped back, angered by the casualness of his manner. ‘What is there to search for that’s so important you’ll commit murder in order not to be interrupted?’
‘That, my friend, is none of your business,’ he replied quietly. ‘If you believe you have correctly interpreted the scrap of conversation you have overheard, then I suggest you avoid travelling on the slittovia. And confine your curiosity to your own affairs. My advice to you is—get on with your film story.’
‘How the hell do you expect me to write a film script in these circumstances,’ I cried.
He laughed. ‘That is for you to consider. In the meantime, be a little less curious. Good-night, Mr Blair.’ He nodded to me curtly and walked out of the room. I heard his feet on the stairs and then the sound of a door closing.
I finished my drink and went up to my room. The door stood open as Keramikos had said. I was certain I had closed it when I left. The room looked just the same. There was no indication that any one had been in it. I sat down on the bed and switched on the electric heater. I was puzzled and, I think, a little frightened. Keramikos had not been angry, but there had been a quiet menace in his words that was even more disturbing.
To try and sleep was out of the question. I decided to add to my report to Engles. I picked up my typewriter and lifted the cover. I was just going to remove the sheet of paper on which I had already typed the day’s report when I noticed that the top of it had been caught between the cover and the base. The paper was torn and dirtied by the catches. Now I am always most careful to adjust the paper so that this does not happen when I am putting my typewriter away with copy in it. It is quite automatic. Somebody had read that report and had failed to adjust the paper properly before putting the lid back on to the typewriter. I made a quick search of the room. My things were all in place, but here and there they had been moved slightly—a bottle of ink at the bottom of my suitcase was on its side, some letters in a writing case were in a different order and several other small things were out of place. I became certain that Keramikos had searched my room. But why had he left the door open? Was he trying to frighten me?
The only thing that mattered was the report to Engles. Fortunately there was no address on it. It read like part of a diary. It was quite innocuous, merely recording my conversations with Carla and Keramikos that afternoon. But it showed my interest. I suddenly remembered that cable from Engles. But it was all right. It was in the wallet in my pocket. The photograph of Carla was also there.
I sat down then and penned an account of the night’s happenings for Engles.
When I came down to breakfast, after only a short sleep, I found Mayne at the piano. ‘Know this, Blair?’ he asked. He was as full of sunlight as the morning. The notes rippled from his fingers like the sound of a mountain stream.
‘Handel’s Water Music,’ I said.
He nodded. He had a beautiful touch. ‘Do you like Rossini for breakfast?’ he asked. A
nd without waiting for an answer, he slid into the overture of The Barber of Seville. Gay, subtle humour, full of mockery and laughter, filled the sunny room. ‘There is more of Italy in this music, I think, than in the works of all her other composers put together,’ he said. ‘It is gay, like Anna here.’ The girl had just come in to lay the breakfast and she flashed him a smile at the sound of her name. ‘Do you know this piece, Anna?’ he asked in Italian, switching into the first act. She listened for a second, her head held prettily on one side. Then she nodded. ‘Sing it then,’ he said.
She smiled and shook her head in embarrassment.
‘Go on. I’ll start again. Ready?’ And she began to sing in a sweet soprano. It was gay and full of fun.
‘That is the Italian side of her,’ he said to me through the music. He suddenly left her flat and thumped into the priest scene. ‘But she does not understand this,’ he shouted to me. ‘She is Austrian now—and a good Catholic. This mocks at the Church. Only the Italians would mock at their Church. Here it is—the foolish, knavish priest enters.’ The notes crashed out mockingly.
He struck a final chord and swung round on the stool. ‘What are you doing today, Blair?’ he asked. ‘Yesterday you introduced me to a very good entertainment at that auction. Today I would like to return your kindness. I would like to take you ski-ing. It is early in the season and there is a lot of snow still to fall. We should not waste a fine day like this. Besides, the forecast is for snow later. What about coming up Monte Cristallo with me?’
‘I’d like to,’ I said. ‘But I feel I ought to do some work.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘You can work all this evening. Besides, you ought to have a look at one of the real mountains up here. I can show you a glacier and some very fine avalanche slopes. Your fat friend is only taking pictures of the ordinary ski runs. You ought to take a look at the real mountains. There’s good film stuff up there.’
The Lonely Skier Page 8
