I rolled quickly in the heat-thawed snow till my clothes were sodden. Then, with a wet handkerchief tied round my face, I sloshed through the melting snow and in through the black, gaping doorway. The inside of that concrete room was like an oven. It was full of smoke. I couldn't see a thing. I stumbled over the pick Engles had used to batter in the door and felt my way to the corner where we had put the skis. Several fell as I touched them. But the clatter they made was scarcely audible above the roar of the flames overhead. I felt along the warm concrete wall with my hands and found a bundle still tied together. With these over my shoulder, I stumbled through the red gap of the doorway, out through the blazing pine supports and into the cold, sodden snow.
I set the skis down, points upwards, in a drift and looked back at the blaze. As I did so, one of the pine supports near the entrance to the machine-room splintered and flared. The blazing floor above it sagged dangerously. A moment later several supports gave with loud cracks and a burst of flame. The flooring, which they supported, slowly buckled, and then the whole blazing facade above folded inwards and sank with a roar of flame and broken wood. A myriad sparks rushed into the night and the flames roared up through the gap in a solid sheet.
Joe came round the end of the building then. I beckoned to him and began to unfasten the skis. When he came up, he said, 'How did this fire start, Neil?'
'Petrol,' I said, fastening on a pair of skis. 'Carla set light to it.'
'Good Lord! Whatever for?'
'Revenge,' I told him. 'Mayne had double-crossed her and jilted her. He'd also planned to murder her.'
He stared at me. 'Are you making this up?' he asked. 'Where's Valdini?'
'Mayne shot him.' I had finished putting on the skis. I straightened up then and found Joe's face a picture of incredulity in the ruddy glare. 'I've got to get down to Tre Croci,' I told him. 'I must get to a phone. I'll take the slalom run. Will you follow me? I'll tell you all about it down at the hotel.' I did not wait for his reply. I put my hands through the leather thongs of the sticks and started off across the snow.
The slalom wasn't an easy run. It was very steep, following pretty much the line of the slittovia, snaking down almost parallel to it. I took it as slowly as possible, but the fresh snow was deep and I was only able to break my speed by snow-ploughing in places. Stem turns were difficult and I often had to brake by running into the soft snow at the side of the run or by falling.
After the lurid light and the roar of the flames at the hut, it was strangely dark and silent going down through the woods. Moonlight filtered through the feathery web of the pine branches and the only sounds were the wind whipping the topmost branches and the hiss of my skis through the snow.