Hammond Innes - The Lonely Skier

A torch was switched on. I lay still. I could see the Kapitan through a gap in a large wheel against which I was lying. He climbed over to the wall and began examining the bodies, one by one. He had his torch in one hand and his revolver in the other. The door was quite near me. I slid quietly along the floor behind the cable drum and reached it. He turned and fired as I opened it. The bullet hit me in the arm. I staggered out and then felt myself falling. I rolled over and over down a steep slope and finished up in soft snow. I had fallen down the sleigh track.

I climbed into the shelter of the woods. Shortly afterwards the sleigh came down. Kapitan Stelben was driving it, and two bodies lay across one of the seats. A few minutes later firing broke out at the bottom of the slittovia. When everything was quiet, I went out on to the sleigh track. But someone was coming up, pulling himself up by the cable. He passed quite close to me and I saw that it was the Kapitan again.

I then made my way down through the woods. At the bottom I found the Korporal, who had gone with the Kapitan to see his officer, lying on his face. The snow was red under his head. He had a bayonet wound in the throat. A little farther on there were more bodies. One had been garrotted. The other two had been killed by bullets. One was the Kapitan’s personal servant and the other the man who had driven the sleigh.

I was very frightened at the sight of these dead bodies and at the memory of what had happened at the top of the slittovia. I was afraid my story would not be believed. I bound up my wound, which I discovered to be only slight, and had the good fortune to obtain a lift in a truck going down into Italy. This took me to Trieste and from there I managed to obtain passage in a caique bound for Corfu. Later, in civilian clothes, I took passage in a schooner for Salonika, where I had been stationed in 1941 and knew people who might help me.

I hereby swear that the above is a true record of what occurred. This is the first statement I have ever made concerning the events described and at no time have I ever mentioned the matter to any one in whole or in part.

Signed: hans holtz. At Salonika, 9-I0-45.

When we had finished reading the statement, Engles carefully folded the sheet of paper and handed it back to Keramikos. ‘It’s strange to see it all written down,’ he said. ‘I was convinced that that was roughly what had happened. But I couldn’t prove it. Stelben’s statement was that, shortly after passing the Tre Croci Hotel, they were forced to a stop because a lorry was drawn up across the road. His men mutinied and joined the men from the lorry. He and his servant, joined by the guard from the slittovia, attempted to prevent them getting at the gold. There was a fight. The slittovia guard and his servant were killed. He was bound and taken up to the top of the slittovia. He managed to free himself eventually and at seven-thirty in the morning he staggered into the Tre Croci Hotel. That was the statement he made to the Commandant of the anti-aircraft unit at Tre Croci. Later he went on with the remaining nineteen cases of gold to Innsbruck, where he made a similar statement to the Gestapo.’

‘Yes, I heard about the statement,’ Keramikos said. ‘One of my people had seen it. Did the Gestapo arrest him?’

‘No. Things were a bit chaotic at the time and he was urgently required in Italy to deal with the threatened Communist risings in the big towns. I interrogated him, you know, when he was first arrested. I could never shake him from that statement. Its weakness was, of course, that they would never have troubled to take him up to the top of the slittovia.’ Engles looked at Keramikos with a puzzled frown. ‘Just why did you show me Holtz’s statement?’ he asked.

‘Ah — you are thinking that it tells you where the gold is hidden, eh?’

‘By the time he had killed those men up here and taken the bodies down to the bottom and then climbed all the way back, it could not have been earlier than, say, four o’clock. He reported to the Commandant at the Tre Croci Hotel at seven-thirty. That gives him barely three hours in which to bury the five remaining bodies and twenty-one cases of gold. He wouldn’t have had time to move those boxes to another hiding place.’

Keramikos shrugged his shoulders. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said.

‘Then why did you show me the statement?’

‘Because, my friend, it only tells you where the gold was. It does not tell you where it is now. Don’t forget that Stelben owned this place for a short time. And he had two Germans working for him up here. They were here for over two weeks before they were arrested.’

‘Were they alone here?’

‘Yes. Aldo and his wife and Anna were given a month’s holiday.’

‘Strange that the two Germans should have been killed in that riot at the Regina Coeli.’

Keramikos smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very convenient, eh — for someone. But who?’

At that moment Carla interrupted us. ‘You have secrets that you talk together so quietly — yes?’

‘No secrets from you, Carla,’ Engles replied. ‘We were just wondering what your little Heinrich did with the bodies of the five German soldiers he buried up here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t pretend that you know nothing about it. Where did he put them — and the gold?’

‘How should I know?’ She was tense and her fingers were tearing at a button on her scarlet suit.

‘Weren’t you here when he had those two Germans working for him?’ Engles asked.

‘No. I was in Venice.’

‘He did not trust you, eh?’ Keramikos said with a sly smile.

She made no answer.

Engles turned to Valdini, who had moved quietly over to join us. ‘And where were you?’ he asked.

‘I also was in Venice,’ Valdini replied. He was watching Carla and there was an ugly little grin on his face.

‘You were in Cortina.’ Carla’s voice sounded startled.

‘No,’ he said, still with that evil grin. ‘I was in Venice.’

‘But I told you to go to Cortina. You said you were at Cortina.’ She was very agitated.

‘I was in Venice,’ he repeated, and his eyes watched her coldly, like a snake.

‘Ah,’ said Keramikos. ‘You were told to keep an eye on Stelben and his two friends. Yet you remained in Venice. I wonder why.’

‘There was no need to go to Cortina. The two Germans were friends of Mayne’s. They were looking after her interests — and Mayne’s.’

I heard Mayne miss a note, and I glanced towards the piano. He was watching us and, as I looked at him, he stopped playing and got up. The others had not noticed. They were watching Valdini. And the little Sicilian was watching Carla.

‘So you stayed in Venice?’ Keramikos said. ‘Why in Venice?’

‘I wished to keep an eye on Mayne,’ Valdini replied slowly.

‘You were spying on me,’ Carla snarled in Italian. ‘Why were you spying on me?’

The corners of his eyes crinkled and his neat little figure was swelled out. He was enjoying himself. ‘You think you can make the fool of me,’ he said to her in English. His tone was violent. ‘You think I have no pride. Once you were glad to say, Si, si, Signor Valdini. That was when I owned you and fifty girls like you. And when I permitted you to call me Stefan — how you were overcome with delight! I did not mind Stelben and all those others. That was business. But this is different. I do not trust you now.’

‘You say Mayne was in Venice,’ Engles said. ‘What was he doing there?’

‘Making love to Carla,’ Valdini replied, and his lips were drawn back from his discoloured teeth in an expression of disgust.

Carla hit him then. She hit him with the back of her hand, and the big diamond ring blazed a trail of blood across his cheek.