Dead Men Don't Ski Page 13

  Emmy had to help her out of the office, and upstairs to her room, where she subsided on the bed in a welter of emotion. By contrast, Trudi herself was perfectly calm.

  Henry took a good look at the girl as she sat down, smoothing her unbecoming dirndl skirt demurely over her plump knees. He realised that he had never really noticed her face before, so nebulous and characterless had she seemed. Now he saw that there was a determined jawline under the rounded pink cheeks, and that the blue dolls eyes—superficially so like her mother's—had, too, a touch of her father's cold determination.

  In a low voice, Trudi answered Spezzi's questions. She had had 3 private skiing lesson in the morning, she said. She had lunched with her parents. After lunch, she had gone on to the terrace, where she sat eating chocolate,

  "Did you see or speak to anyone?" Spezzi asked.

  "Frau Buckfast was there," said Trudi. "I offered her a piece of my chocolate. Then she went to sleep. Just before four o'clock, I saw Herr Hauser coming up the path from the ski-lift. I went indoors."

  "Why?"

  "It was beginning to get cold."

  "Did you speak to Herr Hauser?"

  "Yes. He stopped me in the hall. I said I thought he had already left the hotel, but he said his plans had changed. Then he ... he insisted that I should take tea with him in the bar. He talked again about marriage."

  "We are all deeply sympathetic, Fraulein Knipfer," said Spezzi, reddening slightly. "Until just now, nobody realised that you had lost your fiancée in such a tragic way. You must be extremely upset."

  Trudi looked at him steadily. "Yes, I am," she said.

  "Forgive me for treading on such delicate ground—but I take it that you were in love with Herr Hauser, and looked forward to marrying him."

  "Of course," said Trudi. She looked straight at Spezzi, as if daring him to dispute this statement. Spezzi, considerably disconcerted, led the questioning back to safer ground.

  "Please tell us what happened after tea?"

  "I said good-bye to Herr Hauser in the hall," said Trudi. "It must have been about twenty past four. Then I went up to my room. Later on, I saw him leaving the hotel. My room is on the top floor, over the front door. It was quite dark, but there is a light over the porch, and on the path.

  I watched him walk down to the lift. It was snowing quite hard. I did not dream that I would never see him again."

  Spezzi said, eagerly, "Did you happen to notice the time, Fraulein Knipfer?"

  "No," said Trudi. "I suppose it was soon after six, but I cannot be sure."

  "Now, Fraulein—I am sorry to have to ask you, but can you tell us if Herr Hauser ever spoke to you about his business, or his life in Rome?"

  Trudi smiled slowly—a smile of secret amusement which Henry found rather frightening. "He spoke a lot about Rome," she said. "He told me of the life I would lead there. I know nothing about his business."

  "He never mentioned to you that he had enemies?"

  "Enemies?" Trudi smiled again. "My father says that a good business man can be judged by the number and quality of his enemies. I think Herr Hauser was a good business man."

  Spezzi pounced on this. "So you knew that he had enemies? Who were they?"

  The girl hesitated for a moment. Then she said, "I have no idea. You are reading too much into what I said. I was only giving you my impressions."

  There was obviously no more to be got out of Trudi, for all Spezzi's probing questions. At last, dispirited, he dismissed her with a short homily on the foolishness of trying to conceal information of any sort from the hawk-like vigilance of the Italian police. Trudi smiled again, agreed, and departed, leaving Spezzi with the conviction that in some obscure and indefinable way he had been got at, scored off and generally made a fool of. Her secret laughter riled his proud spirit.

  "The girl is a fool," he said. "She knows more than she will say, and she imagines that she has deceived us." He snorted sardonically, closed his notebook with a snap, and turned to his aide. "Martelli, go and tell the guests that the interrogations are finished for the time being. They may resume their normal skiing activites tomorrow, but remind them all that the Immenfeld run is definitely forbidden. And anyone planning to leave the hotel permanently must notify me at least twenty-four hours beforehand. When you have done that, type your reports and bring them to my room."

  The young carabiniere rose gratefully from his hard chair, saluted smartly, and strode out into the hall with all the anticipatory relish of a junior official who has been entrusted briefly by his superiors with the pleasant task of harrying the common run of humanity.

  Emmy got up, too, stretched her arms above her head, and lit a cigarette.

  Henry turned to Spezzi. "What's your next move?" he asked.

  "I shall study the transcripts of these interviews, prepare a time-table of events, and make a report," said the Capitano. "I would be grateful for translations of the English interviews as soon as possible."

  "You shall have them by the morning," said Henry, m Are you planning to stay on at the Bella Vista?"

  "I think not. Only for a day or two. Then I shall move to the village, and rely on you for reports of what goes on up here."

  Henry nodded. "I was hoping you'd do that," he said. "The very fact that you're in uniform makes them all close up like clams at the sight of you. With me, they are more relaxed."

  "Exactly," said Spezzi. He lit one of his dark and dangerous-looking cigarettes. "I need hardly tell you to keep an eye on Fraulein Braun."

  "Indeed I shall," said Henry. "Incidentally, you don't mind if I do a bit of nosing around on my own, do you? I mean, talking to people, and so on."

  "Anything you wish, my friend," said Spezzi, expansively. "Well, I shall leave you now, and..."

  The sentence was never finished. It was cut off, as by a knife, by a surge of voices in the hall outside. Mrs. Buckfast's clarion-note predominated, rising above the others like the soloist in a 'cello concerto.

  "I've never heard such nonsense," she boomed, menacingly. "I insist!"

  Martelli's voice, a thin piccolo-wail, piped in execrable English, "Signora, the Capitano he say no..."

  "Rubbish," thundered Mrs. Buckfast. "Get out of my way, you silly little man."

  "Rosamund, don't you think—" The Colonel's deep bass rumble was swept aside like a leaf in a storm.

  "Let me into that office!"

  It is a debatable but purely academic question whether Horatius or Attila the Hun might have stood their ground in the face of such a challenge. Lesser men, of the calibre of Martelli and the Colonel, never had the ghost of a chance. Spezzi had barely time to stub out his cigarette and rise to his feet before the door burst open, revealing Mrs. Buckfast, a Hera in magenta velvet, flanked on either side by the awestruck, hovering faces of her husband and Martelli.

  "Madam—" began Spezzi, grabbing at the flying coat-tails of dignity.

  Mrs. Buckfast stepped into the room, and eyed him as a fighting bull might eye an incompetent matador.

  "Since you did not see fit to call me, Capitano Spezzi," she said, "I have been obliged to force my way into your office." She paused, and snorted slightly. Then she advanced another step, and, with a great sense of drama, dropped her bombshell in a quiet, conversational tone of voice.

  "I have come," said Rosamund Buckfast, "to confess."

  In the ensuing uproar, only Mrs. Buckfast remained entirely calm, like a rock round which demented seas toss and whirl. The Colonel, bordering on apoplexy, shouted incessantly that his wife was obviously hysterical and did not know what she was saying: Spezzi screamed at Martelli to clear the room, invoked his Maker for the second time that day, and appealed for calm in a frenetic wail * even Henry found himself pleading urgently with Mrs. Buckfast to reconsider her statement, while Emmy contributed to the melee by going down on her hands and knees to retrieve the papers which had fluttered like doves from Spezzi's briefcase. The clamour naturally attracted the attention of everyone else in the hotel. Cups
of tea and aperitifs were left untasted in the bar, potatoes languished unpeeled in the kitchen, as guests and staff alike swarmed to join the maelstrom in the hall.

  In the end, it was Mrs. Buckfast herself who cleared the office of its unauthorised mob—the last to leave being the Colonel, who was dismissed with a single, peremptory, u Arthur! ", and a sternly-pointed finger. Then she sat down with perfect composure, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.

  Spezzi, pink with agitation and exertion, resumed his seat at the desk, and appealed to Henry. "Ask this madwoman what she means," he pleaded. "She was nowhere near the ski-lift, and now she confesses. It is lunacy."And he mopped his brow energetically.

  Henry, more shaken than he liked to admit, assumed his best Scotland Yard manner and said, "Do I understand, Mrs. Buckfast, that you wish to confess to the murder of Fritz Hauser?"

  Mrs. Buckfast looked at him pityingly. "Of course not," she said. "I should have thought that even you, Henry Tibbett, would have realised that I couldn't possibly have killed him."

  Henry, feeling like a small boy rebuked by his Nanny, clutched the desk for support.

  "Then perhaps you would explain just what you meant just now?"

  "With pleasure."Mrs. Buckfast looked around comfortably, sure of her audience. "Arthur," she said, "is an unsatisfactory husband in many ways."

  There was an uneasy pause, broken only by Spezzi's muttered reiteration of the word "Mad ... mad..."

  "For instance," Mrs. Buckfast went on, conversationally, "his enthusiasms are quite incomprehensible to me. He refuses to learn bridge, which is a game I am very fond of: and then there is his passion for stamp collecting, which I do not share. But perhaps you didn't know about that?"

  "No," said Henry, feebly. "No, I didn't."

  "But the worst of the lot," she went on, "has always been this insane love of skiing. Year after year, every leave, every holiday, he has insisted on skiing. Of course he tries to prevent me from coming with him. But after a regrettable incident in Paris some years ago—I won't bore you with the details, they are not edifying—as I say, after that I decided not to allow him to go abroad on his own again. So you see," she added, with great simplicity, "for a number of years I was very bored indeed."

  Light was beginning to struggle fitfully through the mists in Henry's brain.

  "You were bored," he repeated. "Until you came to Santa Chiara."

  Rosamund Buckfast favoured him with a brief, congratulatory smile. "The first time we came here," she said, "I nearly died of sheer isolation and exasperation. I resolved never to come again, even though Arthur maintained that he had found what he was pleased to call his Shangri-La."

  She stopped, and looked hopefully at Henry, as a schoolmistress might encourage a bright pupil to carry on the chain of reasoning for himself. Henry resolved not to disappoint her.

  He said: "And then, sometime during your first visit here, you met Hauser."

  Mrs. Buckfast nodded approvingly.

  "You were both non-skiers," Henry went on, gaining confidence. "You spent a lot of time on the terrace together, talking. You confided your boredom to him, and he suggested a means of alleviating it. I imagine that at first it was put to you as a sort of harmless game."

  Mrs. Buckfast beamed. "You are cleverer than you look," she said, kindly.

  Spezzi emitted a low moan. "What is this—I don't understand what you are talking about," he complained.

  "Smuggling," said Henry. "A harmless game. A nice little bit of extra pin-money. A breath of excitement in a very dull existence. At first, of course, it will have been perfectly innocuous merchandise. What did he start you on?""

  "The first year, it was just a few bottles of brandy," said Mrs. Buckfast. "They were collected from my house by a Post Office messenger, who gave me an envelope with the payment, in cash. The year after that, it was watches. Hauser had the ingenious idea of hiding them inside the quilted lining of my knitting bag. I made over a hundred pounds on them. I don't deny that it was wrong," added Mrs. Buckfast, reasonably, "but I must be frank and admit that I enjoyed it."

  "And what did you have to bring out from England?"

  Mrs. Buckfast's face clouded. "That was the beginning of the trouble," she said. "I was told to bring over, unopened, a package that would be delivered to me in London. It was a small canvas bag—it came by Post Office messenger, as usual. Now, I do like to know what I'm doing, especially when it's illegal. I ignored Hauser's orders, and opened the bag. I am not," she added unnecessarily, " a woman who is easily intimidated."

  "And what was in the bag?"

  "Diamonds."Mrs. Buckfast's voice was stern and disapproving. "I can tell you, I didn't like it. Brandy is one thing, but diamonds are another, as I told Hauser quite firmly when I got out here. I told him I had not bargained for anything of that sort, and that I would not go on with it. I might have known, of course, that the little brute had no scruples. He made it very clear that if I didn't do as he said, he would inform the police of my activities. I couldn't risk that, so there was nothing I could do about it."

  "When was this?" Henry asked.

  "Last year."

  "And this year?"

  "More diamonds to bring out of England. And for the return journey "—she opened her capacious bag, and brought out a small white package. "I have two dozen of these upstairs," she said. "The same cargo that I had to take home last year. I don't know what the pernicious stuff is, as I am thankful to say I have no experience of such things, but I imagine that it is probably cocaine."

  She handed the package to Henry. "That was really going too far," she went on. "I had already made up my mind to go straight to the authorities in England as soon as I got back, and make a clean breast of things. Had you not concealed from us that you were a policeman"—and she glared accusingly at Henry—"we might all have been saved a lot of bother. However, be that as it may. Hauser began to doubt my reliability. He was no fool. That was why he threatened me."

  "Threatened you?"

  "The gun, the gun," said Mrs. Buckfast, impatiently. "Wednesday evening, in the bar. That little performance was for my benefit. I must admit it gave me quite a shock for a moment. Poor Arthur—of course, he had no idea why I was upset. Personally, I have no doubt that if Hauser had lived, he would have attempted to kill me before we left. He made such a point of announcing his departure to all and sundry that I am convinced he never intended to go far away. He was planning to sneak back and shoot me. Typical of the man."

  "Oh, come now, Mrs. Buckfast—" Henry began, but she interrupted him.

  "You didn't know him," she said, shortly. "I did."

  "So you were very relieved when he was murdered?"

  "I was delighted," she said, candidly, "and I should like to congratulate whoever did it. Apart from getting Hauser out of the way, it has enabled me to talk this thing over with an English police officer, instead of a screaming bunch of Italians." She gzzed witheringly at Spezzi. "I had resolved, you see, to go to the police first thing this morning—it seemed preferable to being murdered, though I must confess it was a choice of evils." She paused. "Well, that's that. Is this unbalanced little man going to arrest me?"

  Henry could not repress a smile. "I don't think that will be necessary, Mrs. Buckfast," he said. "The authorities will have to decide, naturally, what proceedings will be taken, but in view of the fact that you have come to us voluntarily and given us valuable information—"

  Mrs. Buckfast nodded approvingly. "I felt sure you'd be sensible about it, being English," she said, magnanimously.

  "Of course, we shall want a full statement from you, including any information you can give us about Hauser's associates in London."

  "A pleasure, Mr. Tibbett. Whenever you like. For the moment, though, I really must go and explain things to my husband. I'm afraid Arthur may be very silly about the whole thing. Still, I suppose that's only to be expected. I will bring you the rest of the packages before dinner."

  With that, she rose w
ith dignity, and walked to the door. Henry made no effort to stop her, but merely said, "I suppose you realise that what you have just told us constitutes the strongest possible motive for you to murder Hauser yourself?"

  Rosamund Buckfast stopped in the doorway.

  "Naturally, I am aware of that," she said, "but then, we've agreed that it would have been impossible, haven't we?"

  And she walked out into the hall, shutting the door carefully behind her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The next day was cloudless and sunny, and the,prospect of skiing raised everybody's spirits. On the surface, life resumed its normal, carefree aspect—although the beginners' class found Pietro less merry than usual. He appeared gloomy and preoccupied, and refused to discuss the murder beyond remarking briefly that it was a calamity for the whole village.

  "I suppose you realise, old chap, that you've got a class-full of suspects. You'd better watch your step."Jimmy's irrepressible high spirits had returned, now that the ordeal of interrogation was over.

  Pietro looked at him sombrely. "If I thought that the murderer of Fritz Hauser was in my class," he began slowly. Then, thinking better of it, he did a scintillating jump-turn on his skis, and cried, "Right. Today we start with something easy. Stem turns on the piste. After me!"

  Henry had cried off skiing, and spent an hour closeted with Spezzi, after which he took the lift down to the village, where he caught a bus into Montelunga. At the post office he found, as he had hoped, a long cable from London awaiting him. This he perused thoughtfully over a cup of coffee at a sunny trattoria: and, after making some brief notes in his diary, he took a leaf out of Hauser's book and put a match to the cable, stirring it carefully until every vestige was reduced to ash. It was after midday when he got back to Santa Chiara.

  His next objective was the Generi Misti run by Signora Vespi. He purchased a fresh supply of American cigarettes, and then said casually, in Italian, "Bad business, this death on the ski-lift."

  "Terrible, signore, terrible." Signora Vespi heaved a series of seismatic sighs. "My poor husband is distracted. It was he who helped poor Fritz on to the ski-lift, you know. And all yesterday the police were questioning him—my Mario, as innocent as a new-born babe. Is it just?" she demanded, passionately.