Free The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes

Valdini was nervous. His eyes darted here and there round the room. Everyone was watching him. Everyone sensed that he was approaching his limit. A gust of excited whisperings filled the room. The cold voice of the lawyer stilled it. Four million and one hundred thousand, he bid.
    The room gasped. The lawyer was reckoning on Valdini’s limit being four million. One glance at Valdini’s face showed that he was right. The bidding had passed beyond him. Valdini asked permission of the auctioneer to telephone his client. Permission was refused. He pleaded. His client, he explained, had not expected the bidding to go so high. He suggested that the auctioneer himself had not expected it. It was fantastic. In such exceptional circumstances the auctioneer should permit him to refer to his client for instructions. The auctioneer refused.
    He and the room waited in suspense, watching the workings of Valdini’s mind. It was clear that he wanted to go on, but that he did not dare without further instructions. The hammer rose, hesitated as the auctioneer raised his eyebrows in Valdini’s direction, and then finally fell.
    The astonishing auction was over. The
slittovia
was sold to an unknown buyer.

3
Murder for Two
    THERE WAS NO celebration after the auction. The room split up into excited, gesticulating groups. Mancini went off to confer with half the hoteliers in Cortina. I don’t know where Mayne went to—he just seemed to drift off on his own. I found myself having a lonely lunch at the Luna, trying to figure out what all this had to do with Engles.
    When I got back to Col da Varda, there were several parties of ski-ers there, for the sun was still warm. I went straight up to my room and wrote out a report of the auction for Engles. By the time I went downstairs again the ski-ers had all gone. But Valdini was there. He was standing at the bar, drinking. He had a furtive look.
    â€˜You had bad luck,’ I said for the sake of something to say.
    He shrugged his shoulders. He would like to have appeared unconcerned. But he was very drunk. He could not control his features. He looked so wretchedly miserable that I felt almost sorry for the little bounder. ‘Anyway, you had Mancini licked,’ I encouraged him.
    â€˜Mancini,’ he snarled. ‘He is a fool. He knows nothing. But that other . . .’ He suddenly burst into tears. It was a disgusting sight.
    â€˜I am sorry,’ I said. I think my voice must have sounded rather stiff.
    â€˜Sorry!’ he snarled with a sudden change of mood. ‘Why should you be sorry? It is me—Stefan—who is sorry. I should be the proprietor here now. This place should be mine.’ He made a grand wavering movement of his arm, and then added, ‘Yes, mine—and everything in it.’ And he peered forward at me cunningly.
    â€˜You mean it should belong to the Contessa Forelli, don’t you?’ I said.
    His eyes focused on me soberly for a second. ‘You know too much, Blair,’ he said. ‘You know too damn much.’ He seemed to be turning something over in his mind. His expression was not a pleasant one. I remembered Mancini’s description of him—‘a dirty little Sicilian gangster.’ I had thought at the time that Mancini was just giving vent to his anger. But it occurred to me now that perhaps that was just what Valdini was. He looked ugly, and dangerous.
    Footsteps sounded on the wooden boards of the belvedere and the door was thrown open. It was the Contessa, and she was in a blazing temper—it showed in her face and in her eyes and in the way she moved. She was all in white—white ski suit, white gloves, white tam-o’-shanter. Only her scarf and ski socks were red. She looked hard at Valdini. The little man seemed to curl up, deflated. Then she looked past me to the bar. ‘Aldo!’ she called.
    The ape came running. She ordered cognac and went out to a table in the