The Lonely Skier

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 know!'

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 skiing,' 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 one of 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 skier. 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 after 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?'