‘Then you shall come with me — yes?’ Mancini shook his head, smiling. ‘But it will be very dull, you know. No fireworks. There will be just the one bid — a very low one. And then it will be over. But if you really wish to come, meet me here at a quarter to eleven on Friday and we will go together. After, we will have a little drink to celebrate — also because, if I do not give you a drink, then you will feel the time is wasted.’ He gave a deep throaty chuckle. ‘The Government will make little out of it. Which is good because we do not like the Government here. It is of the south and we have a preference for Austria, you know. We are Italian, but we found the Austrians governed better. If there were a plebiscite, I think this part of the country would vote to return to Austria.’
‘What’s the Government got to do with it?’ asked the American. ‘As I remember it, the slittovia was constructed by the Germans for their Alpine troops. Then a British division took it over. Did the British military sell out to the Italian Government?’
‘No, no. When the war was nearly over, the Germans sold it cheaply to the man who once owned the Excelsior. It was from him that the slittovia was requisitioned by the British. His hotel was requisitioned, too. But when the British left, he found it difficult. He had been too great a collaborator. We persuaded him that it would be best to sell and a small syndicate of us bought him out. You see, we are quite a little family here in Cortina. If things are not right, we make adjustments. That was a year ago. Business was not good, you know. We did not want the slittovia then. It was sold very cheap to a man named Sordini.’ He made a dramatic pause. That was a strange business — eh? We did not know. How could we? He was a stranger. It was a big surprise to us when he was arrested. And the two workmen he had up there — they were Germans, too.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, trying to hide my excitement. ‘Was this Sordini a German?’
‘But yes,’ he said in a tone of surprise. ‘The name Sordini was an alias. He took it in order to escape just retribution for all his crimes. It was all in the papers. It was even on your own radio — I heard it myself. It was a captain of the carabinieri who arrested him. The captain and I were drinking together here in this bar the night before he went up to the hut. We think Sordini must have bought the place as a hideout. They took him to Rome and put him in the Regina Coeli. But he did not kill himself in that prison. Oh no — probably he had friends and hoped to escape, like Roatta, Mussolini’s commander in Albania, who was reported to have strolled out of the prison hospital in his pyjamas I and got away down the Tiber in a miniature submarine. No, it was when he was handed over to the British to join the rest of the war criminals that he took the poison.’
‘What was his real name?” My voice sounded unnatural as I tried to show only a casual interest.
‘Why — Heinrich Stelben,’ he answered. ‘If you are interested you shall see the cuttings from the newspapers. I keep them because so many of my guests are interested in our local celebrity.’ The barman produced them immediately.
‘May I borrow these?’ I asked.
‘But certainly. Only return them please. I wish to have them framed.’
I thanked him, confirmed our arrangement for going to the auction and hurried away to my room. I was greatly excited. Heinrich Stelben! Heinrich! I switched on the table light and took out the photograph Engles had given me. ‘Fur Heinrich, mein liebling — Carla.’ It was a common enough name. And yet it was strange. I picked up the cuttings. There were two of them and they both were from the Corriere della Venezia. They were quite short. Here they are in full, just as I translated them that first night in Cortina:
Translated from the Corriere della Venezia of November 20,1946 CARABINIERI CAPTAIN CAPTURES GERMAN WAR CRIMINAL IN HIDING NEAR CORTINA.
Heinrich Stelben, German War Criminal, was captured yesterday by Capitano Ferdinando Salvezza of the Carabinieri in his hideout, the rifugio Col da Varda, near Cortina. He was known in the district as Paolo Sordini. The Col da Varda rifugio and slittovia were bought by him from the collaborator, Alberto Oppo, one-time owner of the Albergo Excelsior in Cortina.
Heinrich Stelben was wanted for the murder of ten British Commandos in the La Spezia area in 1944. He was an officer of the hated Gestapo and he is also accused of assisting in the deportation of Italians to Germany for forced labour and of the murder of a number of Italian political prisoners of the Left. He was also responsible for transporting several consignments of gold from Italy to Germany. The largest consignment was from the Banca Commerciale del Popolo of Venice. Half of this consignment mysteriously disappeared before it reached Germany. Stelben states that his troops mutinied and seized part of the gold.
