Hammond Innes - The Lonely Skier

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.

‘What are you going to do to her?’ Engles asked as he made for the door.

He turned in the doorway and smiled. ‘Make love to her,’ he said. And we heard his boots on the boards outside and then on the stairs. There was a crash of a door being kicked open and then a scream that was instantly stifled. It became a moaning sound that was gradually lost in the noise of the wind.

‘Mein Gott! He has killed her,’ Keramikos said.

We stood listening. Whatever a woman may be, it is not pleasant to hear her scream with pain and to think that she has been killed without any attempt being made to prevent it. I felt suddenly very sick. That scream and Valdini’s body lying there like a stuck pig in his own blood — it was too much. Footsteps sounded on the stairs again. Mayne was coming back. He entered the room and stopped as he saw that none of us had moved. ‘What’s the matter with you people?’ he asked. He had put his gun away and seemed almost cheerful.

‘Have you killed her?’ Engles asked.

‘Good God, no! Just tied her up, that’s all. She couldn’t find another gun in Valdini’s room.’ He nodded at the body. ‘Engles! Will you and Blair remove that. Keramikos — you come with me.’

Valdini’s body was not heavy. We opened the window by the bar and pitched it out. There was a deep drift and Valdini sank into it as though it were a feather bed. I leaned out of the window and looked down at him. He was sprawled on his back, his clothes very bright against the white background of the snow and the blood from his mouth making a red stain round his head. He looked like a rag doll with a ridiculous scarlet hat set at a jaunty angle on his head. Then the snow began to drift across him and his body became indistinct. The wind was very cold on my face and rapidly crusted my head with driven snow. I stepped back and closed the window. Engles was standing over Aldo. The Italian was on his knees, swabbing up the blood with a bar cloth. ‘I think I need a drink,’ I said.

‘Pour me one, will you?’ He came over to the bar. ‘Must be near lunch time.’

I glanced at the cuckoo clock, which was still ticking away merrily as though nothing had happened. It was twelve-thirty. ‘I have never felt less like food,’ I said.

‘Good God! You’ve seen worse than this,’ he said as he took the drink I handed him.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But that was war. I suppose one gets used to the idea of death during one’s battle training. But killing a margin cold blood, that’s different. I thought he was going to shoot her.’

‘Don’t worry — he will. And he’ll shoot us, too, if we don’t do something about it.’ He raised his glass. ‘Cheers!’ he said. He was quite cool. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘the effect that gold or jewels, or any form of concentrated wealth, has on men. Take our friend Stelben; he slaughtered nine men, as casually as you or I would cut a film script. It’s the same with Mayne. Already he’s killed three men and caused another to commit suicide. That’s the straightforward killer for you — the gangster, the man who kills without thought or feeling. He’s, a pretty dull fellow really, no emotions. It’s only what he does that’s exciting.’