The Lonely Skier (24 page)

I set the skis down, points upwards, in a drift and looked back at the blaze. As I did so, one of the pine supports near the entrance to the machine-room splintered and flared. The blazing floor above it sagged dangerously. A moment later several supports gave with loud cracks and a burst of flame. The flooring, which they supported, slowly buckled, and then the whole blazing façade above folded inwards and sank with a roar of flame and broken wood. Myriad sparks rushed into the night and the flames roared up through the gap in a solid sheet.

Joe came round the end of the building then. I beckoned to him and began to unfasten the skis. When he came up, he said, ‘How did this fire start, Neil?'

‘Petrol,' I said, fastening on a pair of skis. ‘Carla set light to it.'

‘Good Lord! Whatever for?'

‘Revenge,' I told him. ‘Mayne had double-crossed her and jilted her. He'd also planned to murder her.'

He stared at me. ‘Are you making this up?' he asked. ‘Where's Valdini?'

‘Mayne shot him,' I said. I had finished putting on the skis. I straightened up then and found Joe's face a picture of incredulity in the ruddy glare. ‘I've got to get down to Tre Croci,' I told him. ‘I must get to a phone. I'll take the slalom run. Will you follow me? I'll tell you all about it down at the hotel.' I did not wait for his reply. I put my hands through the leather thongs of the sticks and started off across the snow.

The slalom wasn't an easy run. It was very steep, following pretty much the line of the
slittovia
, snaking down almost parallel to it. I took it as slowly as possible, but the fresh snow was deep and I was only able to break my speed by snow-ploughing in places. Stem turns were difficult and I often had to brake by running into the soft snow at the side of the run or by falling.

After the lurid light and the roar of the flames at the hut, it was strangely dark and silent going down through the woods. Moonlight filtered through the feathery web of the pine branches and the only sounds were the wind whipping the topmost branches and the hiss of my skis through the snow.

I suppose it took me about half an hour to get down that run. It seemed much longer, for my ski suit was wet through and it was very cold. But my watch showed the time to be only one forty-five as I passed the hut where Emilio lived at the bottom of the
slittovia
. I looked up the long white avenue of the cable track gleaming brightly in the moonlight. At the top, the white of the snow seemed to blossom into a great, violent mushroom of fire. It was no longer possible to discern the shape of the hut. It was just a flaming mass, white at the centre, fading to a dull orange at the edges and throwing out a great trailer of sparks and smoke, so that it looked like a meteor rushing through the night.

When I reached the hotel I found everybody up and bustling to form a party to go up and fight the flames. I was immediately surrounded by an excited crowd, all dressed in their ski clothes. I asked for the manager. He came fussing through the group round me, a stout, important-looking little man with a sallow, worried face and lank, oily hair. ‘You all right,
signore
? Are there any hurt?'

I told him the fire had hurt no one, that it was quite beyond control and would soon burn itself out. Then I asked if I could use his office and his telephone. ‘But of course,
signore
. Anything I can do, you have but to command.' He put two electric fires on for me, had a waiter bring me a drink and a change of clothing and had a hot meal conjured for me out of the kitchen, all in an instant. It was a big moment for him. He was showing his guests how good and generous a host he was. He nearly drove me frantic with his constant enquiries after my health. And all the while I had the telephone pressed to my ear. I spoke to Bologna, Mestre, Milan. Once a line was crossed and it was Rome talking to me. But Trieste or Udine—no.

Joe came puffing in just as I was talking to Bologna for the third time. He looked as though he had had a lot of falls. He was wet with snow and flopped exhausted into an arm-chair. He had his baby camera still slung round his neck. He gave the little manager fresh scope. Brandy was rushed to the scene. He was stripped of his ski suit and swathed in a monstrosity of a dressing-gown decked with purple-and-orange stripes. More food was brought. And whilst all this was going on and in the intervals of my telephonic tour of the main exchanges of Italy, I tried to give him some idea of what had been happening up at Col da Varda. I did not mention the gold, and this omission left loopholes in the story, so that I do not think he really believed it all.

But in the midst of his questions, Trieste suddenly asked me why I did not answer. I asked for the military exchange and got through to Major Musgrave at his hotel. His voice barked at me sleepily down the line. But annoyance changed to interest as I mentioned Engles' name and told him what I wanted. ‘Right-ho,' was the reply, thin and faint as though at a great distance. ‘I'll ring Udine and have 'em move off at once. The
carabinieri
post at Cortina, you say? Okay. Tell Derek they ought to be there about nine-ish, unless the road is blocked.' It was all settled in a matter of a few minutes, and I put the phone down with a sigh of relief.

The little manager had exhausted himself by then. Everyone had gone back to bed. I looked out into the hall. The hotel was quiet again. The porter slept, curled up in a chair by the stove. A big clock ticked solemnly below the staircase. It was ten past four. I went back into the office. Joe was asleep in the arm-chair, snoring gently. I pulled the heavy curtains aside and peered out. The moon was setting in a great yellow ball behind the shoulder of Monte Cristallo. The stars were brighter, the sky darker. Only the faintest glow showed at the top of the
slittovia
. The fire was burning itself out. I pulled a chair up to one of the electric heaters and settled myself down to await Engles' phone call.

I suppose I must have dozed off, for I don't remember the passage of time and it must have been after six when I was woken by the sound of voices in the hall. Then the door of the room was thrown open and Engles staggered in.

I remember I started to my feet. I hadn't expected him. His face was white and haggard. His ski suit was torn. There was blood on the front of his wind-breaker, and a great red stain just above the left groin. ‘Get through to Trieste?' he asked. His voice sounded thin and exhausted.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘They'll be at the
carabinieri
post about nine.'

Engles gave a wry smile. ‘Won't be necessary.' He stumbled over to the desk and collapsed into the leather-padded swivel-chair. ‘Keramikos is dead,' he added.

‘What happened?' I asked.

He stared vacantly at the typewriter that stood on the polished mahogany. He lurched slowly forward and removed the cover. Then he pulled the typewriter close to him and inserted a sheet of paper. ‘Give me a cigarette,' he said. I put one in his mouth and lit it for him. He didn't speak for a moment. He just sat there with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his eyes fixed on the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter. ‘My God!' he said slowly. ‘What a story! It'll make film history. A thriller that really happened. It's never been done before—not like this.' His eyes were alight with the old enthusiasm. His fingers strayed to the keys and he began to type.

Joe woke with a grunt at the sound of the typewriter and stared at Engles with his mouth open, as though he had seen a ghost.

I watched over Engles' shoulder. He wrote:

THE LONELY SKI-ER

 

The click of the keys slowed and faltered. The cigarette dropped from his lips and lay on his lap, burning a brown mark on the white of his ski suit. His teeth were grinding together and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. He raised his fingers to the keyboard again and added another line:

by Neil Blair

 

He stopped then and stared at it with a little smile. A froth of blood bubbled at his lips. His wrists went slack so that the fingers raised a jumble of type arms. Then he gently keeled over and slipped to the floor before I could catch him.

When we picked him up, he was dead.

I WAS FILLED
with a bitter hatred for that gold as I looked down at Engles' body, sprawled limp in the easy-chair in which we had placed it.

What was there in gold? Little bricks of a particularly useless metal—no more. It had no intrinsic value, save that its rarity made it suitable for use as a means of exchange. Yet, though inanimate, it seemed to have a deadly personality of its own. It could draw men from the ends of the earth in search of it. It was like a magnet—and all it attracted was greed. The story of Midas had shown men its uselessness. Yet throughout history, ever since the yellow metal had first been discovered, men had killed each other in the scramble to obtain it. They had subjected thousands to the lingering death of phthisis to drag it from deep mine shafts, from places as far apart as Alaska and the Klondyke. And others had dedicated their lives to a hard gamble in useful products in order to procure it and store it back in underground vaults.

To get hold of this particular little pile of gold, Stelben had slaughtered nine men. And after his death, though the gold was buried in the heart of the Dolomites, it had attracted a group of people from different parts of Europe to squabble and kill each other over it.

Of all the people whom it had drawn up the
slittovia
to Col da Varda, I was the only one left alive. They had not been a particularly attractive group of characters: Stefan Valdini, gangster and procurer; Carla Rometta, a crook and little better than a common prostitute; Gilbert Mayne,
alias
Stuart Ross, deserter, gangster and killer; Keramikos, a Nazi agent with Greek nationality. They had all died because of that gold.

And now—Derek Engles.

He had had his faults. But he had been a brilliant and attract-ive personality. He might have been one of the great of the film world. And now all that remained of him was a body sprawled lifeless in an easy-chair in a mountain hotel in Italy. He would never direct another film. He had even had to pass on to me the responsibility for telling the story of Col da Varda.

Joe was leaning over the body, ripping the clothing away from the wound in the groin. ‘Doesn't look like a bullet,' he said as he laid bare the white skin of the stomach.

I peered over his shoulder. It was more a bruise than a wound. The skin seemed to have been burst open in an irregular, ragged tear. The flesh round it was horribly bruised.

Joe shook his head. ‘Something hit him there—and hit him hard.' He examined the rest of the body. There was no sign of any other wound. He straightened up with a grunt. ‘He must have known he was dying when he came in,' he said. ‘No one could have an injury like that and not know he was finished. I wonder how far away from here it happened. Every step afterwards must have been agony.' He walked to the window and looked out. ‘Clouding over, Neil,' he said, letting the curtain drop again. ‘If it begins to snow again his tracks will be covered up and we'll never know how it happened.'

‘You mean that we ought to follow his ski tracks back whilst we can?' I said.

He nodded. ‘Ought to,' he said. ‘There's his sister—she'll want to know. And the Studios will expect a full report. The blood will show us the trail, even if we can't pick out his ski tracks immediately.' He walked over to the desk and looked at the sheet of paper in the typewriter. He nodded his head slowly as he read it. ‘Perhaps that's what brought him back.'

‘How do you mean?' I asked.

‘Wanted to make certain you'd write the full story for a film,' he replied. ‘He'd a great flair for knowing what the film-going public wants. He knew they'd like this story, and he didn't want it wasted.' He picked up a rubber and began tearing it methodically to pieces. Though he had not been a friend of Engles', I think his death had affected him more than he would care to admit.

‘I never liked him, you know, Neil,' he murmured, looking down at the dead body. ‘He wasn't a man you could really like. You could admire him. Or you could dislike him. But it was difficult to like him. He wasn't the sort of man who made friends easily. He lived on excitement. Everything had to be whipped up—conversation, work, action. That's why he drank so much. His nerves needed the sense of exhilaration drink could give him when there was insufficient excitement.'

‘What are you trying to say, Joe?' I asked.

He looked at me then and tossed the broken rubber into the waste-paper basket. ‘Don't you see—that's why he came out here. It wasn't a sense of responsibility because he had recognised Keramikos as a Nazi agent. It was his craving after excitement. And because he believed there might be the story for a film in it. And that's why, when he came in here, he sat down at the typewriter and wrote down the title and your name underneath. He knew he was finished. But in spite of the pain, his brain still functioned clearly and he saw what a film it would make. Pity he missed the fire scene. He would have liked that.'

He paused for a moment and stared vacantly at the electric fire. ‘It wasn't natural for him to sit down at a typewriter, you know,' he went on. ‘Normally he'd have talked. Verbal self-dramatisation was his hobby. But he wanted the story told with himself as the central figure. He saw himself as—
The Lonely Ski-er
. He had to make sure you'd see it that way. He knew it was the end. And he planned his exit as he struggled through the snow. He wanted an audience. He always needed an audience. And he wanted to die, sitting at a typewriter with a cigarette dangling from his lips, typing the title of the film and your name underneath. It was the thought of that scene that kept him going. He couldn't bear a good situation to be wasted. He had to get back, he had to be sure that you would write the script and that the Studios would produce it as the last work of Derek Engles, their famous director.' He drove his fist into his palm. ‘If only I'd not been asleep, I could have taken a shot of that scene. He would have liked that.' He stopped then, exhausted by such an unusually long speech. He was massaging his lower lip between his finger and thumb. I think he was near to tears. For though he had no love for Engles as a man, he had great admiration for him as a director.