Mayne went across to her. There was no doubt of his intentions. He was livid with anger. He was going to hit her, but as he took his hand out of his pocket, Valdini, who had recovered consciousness, went for his gun. It was in an armpit holster and because he was still dazed he fumbled the draw. Mayne was quicker. He shot him before he had even got his gun out of its holster. He shot him in the chest. A little black mark appeared suddenly on the brilliant blue of Valdini's jacket, and he gave a grunt and rolled over.
Nobody moved for a moment. The smoke curled up blue from Mayne's gun. The shattering sound of the shot seemed to have immobilised us all. Valdini began to whimper and cough up blood.
Carla was the first to move. She gave a little cry and knelt down beside Valdini. We watched her lift his head and wipe the blood from his mouth with the yellow silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. 'Carla — car a mia.' He tried to smile at her and then his head fell back, loose and relaxed.
'Stefan!' she cried out. 'Stefan! Don't leave me.'
But he was dead.
She looked up then, still holding his body in her arms. And she was crying. I think that was the most shocking part of the whole business — that she should be crying because Stefan Valdini was dead.
'Why did you have to kill him?' Her voice sounded tired. 'He loved me. My poor Stefan! He was all I had really. All I've ever had. He was mine. He was the only one who really loved me. He was like a puppy. Why did you have to kill him?'
She seemed to take a grip on herself then. She laid Valdini's body back on the floor and got to her feet. Then she went slowly towards Mayne. He was watching her and at the same time trying to watch us, the gun still in his hand. When she was close to him, she stopped. Her eyes were big and wild-looking. 'You fool!' she said. 'We might have killed Heinrich quietly and shared all that gold between the two of us. We might have been very happy for all of our lives. Why did you have to have Heinrich arrested? And those two friends of yours? It was all so public.'
'The sight of that gold was too much for my two friends,' Mayne replied harshly.
Carla sighed. 'All my life I have lived with men who cheated and killed. But I thought you were honest. I thought you really loved me. In Venice — I was so happy at the thought that we should be rich and be able to live well and without danger. Then you went away and Heinrich and your two friends were arrested. I became suspicious then. I had Stefan follow you. Then I knew that it was all over, that it was not me you loved — only the gold. You bid against me for this place. You planned to murder Stefan and myself. You are a dirty lying cheat." She said these words without emotion. But her voice rose as she went on, 'Now you have killed Stefan. Why don't you kill me too? You have a gun. You should not be afraid with a gun in your hand. Go on, kill me, why don't you?' She laughed. 'You fool, Gilbert! You should kill me now — and all these others. Think of all that gold — and then remember that you are the only person left who knows where it is.' She smiled bitterly. 'It will do you no good. Arrivederci, Gilbert.'
She turned and walked slowly out of the room.
We watched her go. I don't know about the others, but my nails bit deeply into the palms of my hands as I waited, tensed, for Mayne to fire. His face was white and sullen and I could feel the pressure of his finger on the trigger of that pistol as he slowly lifted it. Then suddenly he relaxed and let the gun fall to his side. Carla's ski boots sounded on the bare boards of the passage outside and then climbed slowly up the stairs.
He turned to us with a smile. It was meant to be an easy, confident smile. But all he achieved was a deathly grin. His face looked drawn and hollow. His skin had a grey pallor that was not entirely due to the dim, snow-whitened light that came through the windows from the bleak world outside. And I suddenly realised that he was afraid.
He seemed to hesitate for a moment. I think he was debating whether to shoot us down there and then. I had an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach. 'If he raises that gun, dive for the table,' Engles whispered to me. His voice was tense. I glanced at the big pine table. It offered very little cover. I felt helpless and' I think I was frightened. My mouth felt dry and every movement, every sound in that room was magnified so that the scene is still quite vivid in my mind.
I remember I could hear the ticking of the cuckoo clock above the noise of the wind. I believe the sound of the snow falling was actually audible, a dull blanketed murmur that was like a sigh. And there was a strange chattering noise, which I traced to Aldo's teeth. The blood was moving in a dark trickle from below Valdini's mouth, which was open and resting close against the scrubbed pine boards of the floor. One of us had spilled a glass of cognac on the bar. The little pool of liquor dripped steadily on to the floor.
It seemed ages that we stood there like that — quite still — the three of us bunched against the bar, Aldo with a cloth in one hand and a glass in the other and his teeth chattering in his bald shiny head, and Mayne standing out there in the middle of the room, the gun slack in his hand. But I suppose it was only for a matter of seconds really. A door shut and Carla's boots sounded overhead. She was in Valdini's room.
Mayne glanced up. He too, was listening to the sound of those footsteps, and I think he must have been wishing that he had killed her whilst he had the chance. Then he pulled himself together. And it was with something of his old manner that he turned to us and said, 'I am afraid, gentlemen, I shall have to ask you to hand over your weapons, if any. You first, Keramikos! Step over to the table where I can see you clearly.' And he motioned him to move with the point of his gun. 'You needn't be afraid,' he added as the Greek hesitated. 'I won't shoot you. I'll need your help in digging up the gold.'
I think Keramikos was in two minds. By a quick movement he could get behind Engles. But Engles had turned and was watching him.
'You'd better do it before he gets frightened again.' Engles said.
Keramikos suddenly smiled. 'Yes, perhaps it is better,' he said and went over to the table. He glanced enquiringly at Mayne.
'Take your gun out by the muzzle and lay it on the table,' Mayne told him.
Keramikos did this.
'Now turn round!'
I half braced myself for the shot. But Mayne walked over to him and searched him quickly with practised hands.
It was Engles' turn next. He, too, had a gun.
'Now you, Blair.'
'I haven't got a gun,' I said as I went over to the table.
He laughed at that. 'Bit of a sheep among the wolves, aren't you?' he said. But he searched me all the same. He even ordered Aldo out from behind the bar and searched him. The Italian was practically beside himself with fear, and, as he came out from behind the bar, his eyes were starting in his head so that he looked like some grotesque doll out of a Russian ballet. 'Now get that body out of here,' Mayne told Aldo in Italian. 'Bury it in the snow and wash those boards.'
'No, no, signore. Mamma mia! E non possibile.' I don't know which he was more terrified of — Mayne's gun or the body huddled against the wall in its pool of blood. He was gibbering and quite beyond reason.
Mayne turned to us. 'There's no sense in this animal,' he said. 'Perhaps you'd be good enough to dump it outside in the snow somewhere so that it doesn't show and get this cretino to swab the floor.' He was quite master of himself again. He dealt with the disposal of Valdini's body as though it were a glass that had been smashed. 'Do not try to go to your rooms yet,' he added. 'I want to search them first.' He glanced up. Carla's boots were moving about almost directly above his head. 'Now I must go up and attend to Carla,' he said. But first he went to the telephone and wrenched it out of the wall.