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.
