The Lonely Skier

by Hammond Innes

  So we waited. And at last, about ten-thirty, the drone of the cable told us that the sleigh was coming up. Nobody moved. But the atmosphere quickened to interest. I got up and went over to the window that looked out on to the sleigh track. ‘Who’s coming up—your director?’ Mayne asked.

  ‘Can’t see yet,’ I told him. Visibility was very poor. The sleigh track lost itself in the grey murk of falling snow.

  Mayne came over and stood beside me. The cable jerked clear of the snow. And then, like a ghost ship, the sleigh emerged from the snow. ‘Looks as though there are two passengers on it,’ he said. ‘Who else would want to come up on a day like this?’ He swung round. ‘Do you know who the other passenger is, Valdini?’

  The little man looked up from the contemplation of his fingernails. He was dressed in a suit of sky blue with a dark-blue shirt and a crimson tie. He looked like the leader of a hot rhythm outfit. His rubber face grinned. But the grin did not extend to the eyes, which were watchful and narrowed. He sucked at his teeth. ‘It is possible,’ he said.

  The sleigh was nearing the top now. It was thick with snow. I recognised the two passengers seated behind Emilio—they were Engles and the Contessa.

  The sleigh stopped at the little wooden platform, which was almost under the window. Engles looked up, saw me and nodded a brief greeting. Mayne took a quick breath and then walked casually back to the stove. Carla was talking gaily to Engles as they got their skis off the rack on the sleigh. Anna went out and took Engles’ two suitcases.

  I turned back into the room. The others were seated exactly as they had been before. Nobody spoke. The ticking of the cuckoo clock was quite loud. I went over to the bar and got out a bottle of cognac and some glasses. There was a clatter of skis being placed against the wooden walls of the hut. Then the door opened and the Contessa came in, followed by Engles. Joe got up and said, ‘Hallo, Engles. Glad to see you. Had a good trip?’ That was the only movement from the group by the stove. Mayne and Keramikos were watching Engles, and Valdini was watching the Contessa.

  Joe sensed the silence and tried to talk it down. ‘Here, I’ll put your coat on the table. Need a drink, I expect, old man. Ah, I see Neil has already had the same idea. Well, better introduce you since you’re staying here. We’re all present. Can’t get out in this damned snow.’

  Engles nodded briefly at the group by the stove as Joe introduced him. Then he said, ‘Come and have a drink, Joe. I want to hear what sort of shots you’ve got for me. You need a drink, too, Carla. What are you having?’

  She removed her heavy fur-lined jacket. She was dressed in her scarlet ski-suit. It was a pleasant splash of colour in that drab room. ‘I would like a strega, please, Derek.’ And she took his arm as though he were the one man in the world.

  Engles gave me a quick, secret smile. I poured the drinks. Joe began talking about his focal point. Engles was only half-listening. His attention kept wandering to a battered mirror that hung on the wall at the end of the bar. At first I thought he was checking up on his appearance. He was always meticulous about his toilet when women were around. But then I realised that he could not possibly see himself in it. What he could see was the little group by the fire.

  I switched my attention and saw that Mayne, too, was watching that little mirror. Joe rambled on about the importance of the slittovia from the camera point of view. Engles did not even pretend to be interested. He was watching Mayne and there was something between amusement and excitement in his dark eyes.

  At last Mayne got up and came over to the bar. His movements were casual enough, but it was a deliberate casualness. He and Engles were much of a height when they stood together, though Engles seemed shorter because of the slight stoop of his shoulders. Joe paused for breath and Mayne said, ‘As you’re joining us in this hermit’s existence up here, Mr Engles, perhaps you will have a drink with me?’

  ‘I’d like to,’ Engles replied.

  Mayne poured the drinks, chalked himself up for the round, brought Keramikos and Valdini in and, in short, became a most charming and natural host, talking pleasantly and easily of the advantages of peacetime air travel as compared with conditions in wartime. ‘But peace or war,’ he said, ‘I can never reconcile myself to the take-off—that uninsurable half-minute when your eyes won’t focus on your book and you feel hot and there is that rattling roar of the engines as the ground rushes past the window faster and faster and then suddenly recedes.’

  Joe, who had been content to pause for another drink, now dived back into the original conversation. ‘There’s one point at any rate, Engles,’ he said, ‘that I’d like to get settled before I take any more shots. Do we or do we not—?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll be doing much camera work for some little time,’ Mayne interrupted him. ‘Look at it now!’

  He was pointing at the window and we all turned. Outside, it had suddenly become even darker. The snow was lifting up before it reached the ground and swirling round in eddies. Then, suddenly, all those millions of little jostling snowflakes seemed to fall into order of battle and charge against the trees on the far side of the slittovia. The whole hut shook with that first gust of wind. It whined and ramped round the gables as though intent upon plucking the hut off Col da Varda and whirling it away into space. It took hold of the trees and shook them like a terrier shakes a rat. The snow fell in great slabs from their whipping branches. A wave of snow swept up from the ground and flung itself across the sleigh track. Then the wind steadied down to a hard blow, driving the snowflakes almost horizontal to the ground.

  ‘Looks as though you’ll have to spend the night up here, Carla,’ Engles said.

  She smiled. ‘Will you be a nice man, then, and give up your room for me?’

  ‘Do not be afraid, Mr Engles,’ Valdini said with a horrid leer. ‘She has so kind a nature—she will not insist that you sleep down here.’

  There was an awkward silence which Carla broke with a laugh. ‘Do not mind Stefan,’ she said to Engles. ‘He is jealous, that is all.’

  ‘Jealous!’ Valdini’s eyes hardened and he looked at Mayne. ‘Yes, I am jealous. Do you know what it is like to be jealous, Mr Mayne?’ His voice was dangerously suave and once again I had that feeling of unpleasant emotions kept just below the surface.

  The hut shook to a renewed onslaught of the wind. It thrashed through the tops of the firs, tearing from them their last remnants of snow so that they stood up, black and bare, in that grey, white-speckled world.

  ‘Lucky we’re not on that glacier now, eh, Blair?’ Mayne said to me. Then to Engles: ‘You know you nearly lost your script writer yesterday?’

  ‘I heard he’d had an accident ski-ing,’ Engles replied. ‘What happened?’

  Mayne gave his version. He told it well and I listened with some admiration. Engles could hear what really happened later. ‘It was just of one those things,’ Mayne concluded. ‘My fault, really. I should have kept closer touch.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ Engles asked, turning to me. ‘You had a spill in soft snow, I suppose. Did you get back on your own?’

  I told him how a freak change in the weather had enabled me to get back across the glacier and how a search-party had picked me up half-way down the pass.

  ‘I’ve got a shot of him collapsing as he reached us,’ Joe said. ‘It’s a real beauty. You want a scene like that in the script. It’ll grip any audience. His companion telephoning from an hotel, search-parties starting out, the man himself struggling out of the soft snow, trekking back over the pass, and finally collapsing. Have his girl with the rescue party.’

  Engles seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then his eyes lighted up with that infectious enthusiasm. ‘That’s wasting it, Joe. You can get more drama into it than that. And to hell with the girl. Listen—suppose Mayne here wanted to murder Blair. He’s a good ski-er. Blair isn’t. A snowstorm comes up. Mayne’s leading. He bears right after crossing the glacier—not by mistake, but by design.’ I scarcely heard what he said af
ter that. I was watching Mayne. At the mention of ‘murder’ he had stiffened. He glanced quickly at Keramikos. His eyes were blank and he passed his tongue once or twice across his lips.

  ‘A night out there in a storm, and he’s bound to freeze to death,’ I heard Engles saying. ‘The perfect murder. Can’t be proved. But, by a freak chance, Blair comes back. It’s a lovely situation. We’ll write that into the script, Neil,’ he added, turning to me.

  Keramikos thrust his head forward. ‘This hypothetical case,’ he said. ‘It is most interesting. But why should Mayne wish to kill Blair?’

  ‘Ah! That is what we have to work out,’ Engles said. Then he turned to me. ‘Come on, Neil,’ he said. ‘We’ll get this down whilst the idea is clear in our minds. Where can we go? What about your room? Any heating?’

  ‘There’s an electric stove,’ I said.

  ‘Good!’

  As soon as we were outside the door I said, ‘Whatever induced you to produce that murder idea?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a bad idea,’ he said, grinning up at me as we mounted the stairs.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t at all a bad idea. In fact, it’s exactly what happened. Mayne tried to murder me.’

  ‘Yes, I guessed as much.’

  ‘How could you?’ I said. We were in my room now.

  ‘Your unwillingness to talk on the phone. And what I know of Mayne.’

  I shut the door and switched on the electric heater. It was very cold and the snow was piling up against the window, so that it was almost impossible to see out. ‘What do you know of Mayne?’ I asked.

  He gave me a quick glance as he seated himself on the bed and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘That can wait for the moment, Neil. Let’s hear what’s been happening up here. The last message I got from you was the cable giving details of the auction. It was that and the photograph of the bunch downstairs that brought me over here. Let’s start with the auction.’

  When I had given him a full description of the sale, he asked me to give him all the information on Mayne, Keramikos, Valdini and Carla. I started with Carla. I told him all that she had told me about herself. ‘And you believed her?’ he cut in.

  ‘I saw no reason not to,’ I replied. ‘She’s pretty sensual, but that’s no reason why she shouldn’t really have been in love with Stelben.’

  He gave a cynical laugh. ‘That woman in love! She’s never loved any one but herself. She’s clever and she can handle men. She’s twisted you round her little finger, Neil.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said angrily. ‘It’s a perfectly reasonable story.’

  ‘Reasonable!’ He laughed outright. ‘It’s about as reasonable as a tiger migrating to the Antarctic. What use would that woman have for a secluded villa on top of Col da Varda? She has two interests only in life—and money is the chief one. The trouble with you, Neil, is that you know nothing about women and are as gullible as any man I have ever met.’

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Have it your own way,’ I said. ‘But do you expect me to have second sight? How should I know whether she’s telling the truth or not? Suppose you give me all the information you have about these people. Then I’d have something to go on.’

  He smiled. ‘All right, Neil—a fair point. That’s Carla and Valdini. What about Keramikos?’

  I told him what Keramikos had said of Mayne, of the meeting in the slittovia machine-room and how the Greek had denied that he had searched my room.

  ‘Anything on Mayne?’ he asked after that.

  ‘Only what Keramikos told me, and then that ski trip yesterday.’

  He considered for a moment. ‘You haven’t done badly at all, Neil,’ he said with a sudden friendly smile. Again he paused. Then he said, ‘Suppose it was Mayne who searched your room that night? Would that have given him grounds for wanting to get rid of you?’

  ‘Hardly,’ I said. And then I remembered the sheet of typescript in my typewriter. ‘Yes, it might,’ I added. ‘I’d written a report for you. It was an account of what Keramikos had told me. Whoever it was who searched my rooms had had a look at that.’

  He nodded. ‘And suppose the man that Keramikos had talked with that night was Mayne? Could it have been Mayne?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t really see him. But he was tall enough. It could have been.’

  ‘And if it was, then Mayne would have drawn certain conclusions from the fact that you were not in your room. Yes. I think it must have been our friend Mayne.’

  There was a pause then. He seemed to have come to the end of his questions. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘It’s about time you gave me some idea of what’s going on here.’

  He considered the point. Then he said, ‘You’ll be surprised at this, Neil. I know less than you do really. I know the background of Mayne and the Greek. But I don’t know how they fit into the Carla-Valdini set-up. There’s tension there, I can see that. But why? No, the only thing I know that you don’t is the reason they’re all here. And the less you know about that the safer you’ll be. I don’t think you’re in any real danger now that I’ve arrived. For the rest, I think it will all resolve itself—with a little help. This place is just about snowbound. Everybody who is interested in Col da Varda is cooped up inside this hut.’ He laughed and there was a devil of excitement lurking in his dark eyes. ‘We’ll have some fun now. The pot is ready to boil over. We’ll go down and start stoking up the fires. Whatever I say, or whatever I do, Neil—don’t interfere. Just keep in the background and watch the fireworks.’ He got up abruptly then and opened the door. ‘And don’t say anything to old Wesson about this. All his thrills are on celluloid. If he met one in real life, he’d have a fit.’

  When we returned to the bar, only Carla and Mayne were there. Carla was still drinking strega and, judging by the flush on her cheeks, she had had quite a number whilst we had been out of the room. Mayne had recovered his ease of manner on cognac. Aldo was behind the bar. ‘Due cognaci,’ Engles ordered.

  ‘Si, si—subito, signore.’

  ‘Where’s Wesson?’ Engles asked Mayne.

  ‘Gone to develop some negatives for you.’

  ‘And Valdini and the Greek?’

  ‘They have gone to see him develop,’ Carla answered. ‘But why Stefan is interested when he knows the pictures are not pornographic, I do not know,’ she added with a laugh.

  Mayne was watching Engles—watching and waiting for him. The tension between them was uncomfortable. Engles drank in silence for a moment. Carla said nothing. She watched the two of them, and there was a gleam in her eye that I did not understand.

  It was Mayne who made the first move. I don’t think he could stand that silence. ‘Have you thought out why I should want to kill Blair?’ he asked. He tried to make his voice sound casual, but the tremor in it betrayed tense nerves.

  Engles looked at him. Then he turned to Carla. ‘You remember last night, when you told me what Mayne really was—you said he had double-crossed you?’

  Carla nodded, and her eyes gleamed like those of a cat in the dark. Mayne set down his drink. His hand clenched as though about to hit out.

  ‘Would it interest you to know,’ Engles continued smoothly, ‘that he is not content with double-crossing you—he plans to murder you?’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Mayne cried. Then with a sneer to cover that too emphatic denial, ‘And how was I supposed to be planning to kill Carla?’

  Engles smiled. But he still addressed Carla and not Mayne. ‘The slittovia. A loosened cog and an accident—and that was to be the end of you, Carla, and Valdini.’

  ‘You must be mad,’ Mayne said, his lips white. ‘First it’s Blair. And now Carla—and Valdini.’ Then, in a quieter tone: ‘I can’t believe you’re serious.’

  ‘But I am serious,’ Engles replied slowly. Then he suddenly leaned forward. It was as though he had pounced on the man. ‘That affair yesterday was as much attempted murder, Mayne, as if you had pulled a knife and tried to slit Blair’s thr
oat.’

  Mayne laughed. The laugh was pitched a shade too high. ‘Try and prove that. My God, Engles, if this were England, I’d sue you for slander.’

  ‘If this were England, my boy,’ Engles replied, ‘you’d be in a condemned cell awaiting execution.’

  Mayne suddenly shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think you must be mad,’ he said and poured himself another drink. The scene might have ended there, for I think Engles would have regarded it as sufficient stoking of the fires for the time being. But then Carla suddenly stepped in. ‘Gilbert,’ she said, and her voice was silky soft like a panther padding to the kill, ‘why did you wish to keel me?’

  Mayne took his drink at a gulp and said, ‘How should I know? Ask Engles. It’s his fairy tale. Maybe he can tell you.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t need to ask him.’ The voice was purring, but I felt it was purring with hate. ‘Perhaps I know.’ The words came like the final crash of a chord.

  Mayne was watchful now, his pale eyes cold and slightly narrowed. ‘And why should I want to kill you?’ he asked smoothly.

  ‘Because I am no longer of use to you and I know too much.’ Her voice was raised now. It was angry and bitter. ‘You tried first to blackmail Heinrich. And when he would not tell you where it was hidden, you had him arrested. You dirty little informante! You killed my poor Heinrich.’

  ‘Your poor Heinrich! You hated him. And he despised you.’

  ‘That is not true,’ she flared. ‘He loved me—always.’

  Mayne laughed. ‘Loved you! He despised you. He kept you because you were useful to him. He was a fugitive in a foreign country, and you knew how to hide him. And you stayed with him because your greedy little soul was in love with a million in gold.’

  ‘Greed! You talk about greed! You . . .’

  Mayne went on drinking and allowed the flood of Italian invective to pass over his head. His manner was one of studied insolence. Carla suddenly stopped. There was a wild look in her eyes. ‘I hate you,’ she stormed. ‘Do you hear? I hate you.’