The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes

in the bar. Then, about ten, there was the tramp of heavy boots on the stair boards, voices said good-night, doors banged. Joe poked his head round the door of my room. ‘How’s it going?’ he enquired.
    â€˜All right, thanks,’ I told him.
    â€˜Good. It’s all clear downstairs now. They’ve all gone to bed. It’s warmer down there, if you’re working late.’
    I thanked him. He went into his room. I heard him moving about for several minutes. Then all was quiet. The hut had settled down to sleep. The sound of Joe’s snores began to come through the match-boarding as clear as though he were asleep in the room.
    I put the lid on my typewriter and got up. I was stiff with cold. I hurried into the warmth of my bed. But I could not sleep. Thoughts kept chasing through my mind.
    Whether I dozed off or not I do not know. All I know is that I was suddenly awake. And it was much later. The moon had moved round and was shining across the room on to the white enamel-ware of the wash-stand. The rhythmic snore of Joe’s breathing was just the same. The hut was quiet. Yet something was different. I lay huddled in the warmth of the bedclothes looking about me, conscious of that strange watchfulness I had felt in old houses when as a child I had lain awake in the dark.
    I tried to go to sleep again. But I could not. I thought of the bar downstairs. I could do with a cognac or two. I got up and put two sweaters and my ski suit on over my pyjamas. I had just finished dressing when I noticed something different about the window. I went over to it and peered out. The great overhanging mass of snow with the icicle on the end was gone. The sound of it falling must have been the cause of my waking.
    I was turning away when I saw a figure moving across the belvedere. The moon gave his body a long shadow that lay full across the boards of the platform. I peered down as it hurried silently down the steps and was lost to view behind the wooden balustrade. When it was gone I blinked my eyes and wondered if it had ever really been there. It had been a tall figure.
    I hesitated. It was nothing to do with me. A boy-friend of Anna’s perhaps. Her bright, laughing eyes might well do more than flirt with visitors as she brought them food and drinks. I looked at my watch. It was after two.
    I suppose it was the fact that I was actually dressed and wide awake that determined me. I was suddenly outside my room and slipping quietly down the stairs in stockinged feet.
    The large bar room was a ghostly space of silence in the wide shafts of moonlight. I crossed it quickly and opened the door. Outside it was cold and bright with the moon. I put my shoes on and tiptoed across the belvedere and down the steps on to the snow path that led up from the
slittovia
.
    I was in shadow here, for the platform of the belvedere was higher than my head and the path ran close beside it. I stopped to consider. There was no sign of the figure I had seen from my window. The
rifugio
, viewed from this angle, had a perfectly straight façade. The great pine piles on which it was built were so tall that it was possible for a man to walk underneath by bending slightly. Halfway along, the pine supports ceased and the base of the hut became concrete. This was the concrete housing of the
slittovia
plant. It had a broad window looking straight down the sleigh track. I could see the dark square of it despite the fact that it was in shadow. Just below the window was a slit and the cable that emerged from it was just visible. Opposite the window, a wooden platform had been built out on to the actual slope of the trackway to enable passengers to alight from the sleigh.
    I was cold, standing there, and I began to regard myself as more than a little foolish, wandering about in the snow after shadows at two in the morning. But just as I was considering returning to the bar for a drink, I saw a slight movement where the pine supports gave place to