The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes Page A

the concrete machine housing. I watched closely. For a while there was no further movement, but now I could make out a darker shadow against the concrete. It was the shadow of a man standing very still almost underneath the flooring of the bar.
    I froze to complete stillness. I was in shadow. As long as I did not move he might not see me. I must have stayed like that for perhaps a minute, debating whether I dare risk moving right under the platform, for, if he came back towards me, he was bound to see me. Before I could make up my mind, however, the shadow began to move. It came out from underneath the
rifugio
and moved along the concrete face of the machine-room. He was quite clear to me now in silhouette against the white snow of the firs beyond. He was a shortish, thick-set man. He was not a bit like the man I had seen cross the belvedere. He stopped by the window of the machine-room and peered in.
    I climbed quickly over the crisp-piled snow and got in under the platform. Then I made my way carefully along under the hut until I was close to the concrete section. I peered out. The man was still there, his body a dark shadow by the window.
    A light suddenly shone out from the machine-room. It was the moving light of a torch and it rested for a moment on the face of the watcher. I recognised it instantly. It was Keramikos. I stepped back behind one of the supporting piles. I was only just in time. The Greek slipped back into cover. But he was not quick enough. The sound of footsteps crunched in the frosty snow and the torchlight was shone straight on to him. ‘I have been expecting you.’ I could not see the speaker. He was just a voice and the glare of the white circle of his torch. He spoke in German, the lighter German of Austria.
    Keramikos stepped forward. ‘If you were expecting me,’ he replied in German, ‘there’s no point in my continuing this game of hide-and-seek.’
    â€˜None whatever,’ was the reply. ‘Come inside. You may as well look at the place whilst you’re here and there are some things we might talk over.’
    The beam of the torch swung away and the two figures moved beyond my line of vision. A door was closed and their voices immediately ceased.
    I slipped out of my hiding-place and moved quietly to where Keramikos had been standing. I knelt down to peer in through the window, so that my head would not appear at the level expected if the torch were shone on the window again.
    It was a weird scene. The torch was held so that the light of it fell full on Keramikos. His face was white in the glare of it and his shadow sprawled grotesquely on the wall behind him. They sat opposite each other on the great cable drum. The stranger was smoking, but he had his back to me, so that the slight glow as he drew on his cigarette did not show me his face. Except for the one wall, the room was in half darkness, and the machinery showed only as shadowy bulks huddled in their concrete bedding.
    I remained watching till my knees began to ache. But they just sat there talking. They did not move. There were no excited gestures. They seemed quite friendly. The window had small panes set in steel frames. I could not hear a word.
    I crawled across the platform and stepped over the cable. The snow crunched noisily under my feet. I was at the very top of the sleigh track. It dropped almost from under my feet, a snowy slash between the dark firs. I crossed it and went round the corner of the concrete housing to the door, which was under the wooden flooring of the
rifugio
. It was closed. Very carefully I lifted the latch and pulled it towards me.
    Through a half inch slit I could see that the scene had not changed. They were still seated, facing each other, with Keramikos blinking like an owl in the glare of the torch. ‘. . . loosen off this cog,’ the stranger was saying, still in Austrian. He shone the torch on a heavy, grease-coated cog that engaged the main driving