At a million lire there was a pause in the bidding. Mancini had been getting slower and slower in his bids as the figures rose. He sat hunched in his seat, his jaw set and his eyes sullen. It was not the money he cared about so much as this deliberate flouting of his position in Cortina. It hurt his pride to have to haggle in public for something that everyone knew he had arranged in private. I leaned across to him and ventured to ask him what the property was worth. ‘To me, perhaps a million,’ he replied. ‘To an outsider, nothing.’
‘You mean you will boycott the place and Valdini will lose his money?’ I asked.
‘Valdini?’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Valdini is a dirty little Sicilian gangster. He loses nothing. It is not his money.’
‘He is acting for someone then?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘The Contessa Forelli, I think. I have sent someone to try and find out.’
The auctioneer had grown tired of waiting. He poised his hammer. Mancini raised the bidding ten again.
‘Cinquanta,’ came the monotonous voice of Valdini.
‘Sessanta.’
‘Cento.’
‘I do not understand it,’ Mancini muttered angrily to me. ‘They will pay through the nose and make a bad business of it. There are hidden reasons. That Forelli woman is up to something. She is too clever with men.’
The man who had slipped out for Mancini returned and whispered in his ear. ‘Ma, perche?’ I heard him ask.
The man shrugged his shoulders. Mancini turned and raised the bidding again. ‘It is Forelli,’ he said to me. ‘But why I do not know. She must have a reason. If I knew it and it was worth the money, I would give her a defeat. But I do not throw money in the drain, you understand.’ He was near the limit he would go. I felt sorry for him. He did not want me to think him unsporting or lacking in courage. He did not like an Englishman to see him defeated.
The bidding crawled slowly up to the one and a half million mark. Then Valdini astonished the whole room by changing his tactics. He jumped from one and a half to two millions. There was a note of triumph in his voice. He guessed the hotelier would not follow him to that figure.
His psychology was right. Mancini shrugged his shoulders as the auctioneer glanced at him enquiringly. Then he rose to his feet. The bidding was over. Mancini was making a grand exit as though washing his hands of a preposterous business. The auctioneer raised his hammer. This time his movement was quicker.
But as the hammer rose, a sharp firm voice said, ‘Due e mezzo.’
The room gasped. Two and a half million lire!
Mancini sat down again, searching the room. For a moment there was not a sound. I looked across at Valdini. The beaming importance had been wiped from his face by this fresh bid. His features had a mean look. The auctioneer searched out and found the new bidder. He was a small, pallid man in a dark grey suit seated uncomfortably on an upright chair. He looked like an undertaker. His clothes did not suggest that he was worth a lot of money. Asked to repeat his bid, he did so in the same firm voice.
The auctioneer glanced at Valdini who nodded his head with a worried look and raised the bidding five hundred thousand. ‘Tre million!.’ The voice was firm and impersonal. It hushed the sudden outburst of excited conversation.
‘This is incredible,’ I said to Mayne.
His eyes were fixed intently on the new bidder. He did not hear me. I turned to Mancini. ‘Who is the little man who is bidding?’ I asked him.
‘A lawyer from Venezia,’ he said. ‘He is a partner in a firm which works for big industrial enterprises. He, too, is bidding for a client.’ His tone showed his concern. I think he was envisaging a big syndicate invading Cortina with money enough to put himself and his friends out of business.
Valdini suddenly jumped five hundred thousand. His voice was pitched a shade high as he made the bid. It was a violent gesture. ‘Shock tactics,’ I whispered to Mayne.
He was still watching the scene intently, his eyes narrowed. I noticed the knuckles of his hands were white where they gripped the chair. He was clearly very excited by the bidding. Suddenly he relaxed. ‘What? — oh, shock tactics — yes. Valdini is near his limit.’ And he turned away again, tense and watchful.
The little lawyer seemed to hesitate. He was watching Valdini closely. Valdini was nervous. His eyes darted here and there around 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.
