I was filled with a bitter hatred for that gold as I looked down at Engles' body, sprawled limp in the easy-chair in which we had placed it.
What was there in gold? Little bricks of a particularly useless metal — no more. It had no intrinsic value, save that its rarity made it suitable for use as a means of exchange. Yet, though inanimate, it seemed to have a deadly personality of its own. It could draw men from the ends of the earth in search of it. It was like a magnet — and all it attracted was greed. The story of Midas had shown men its uselessness. Yet throughout history, ever since the yellow metal had first been discovered, men had killed each other in the scramble to obtain it. They had subjected thousands to the lingering death of phthisis to drag it from deep mine shafts, from places as far apart as Alaska and the Klondyke. And others had dedicated their lives to a hard gamble in useful products in order to procure it and store it back in underground vaults.
To get hold of this particular little pile of gold, Stelben had slaughtered nine men. And after his death, though the gold was buried in the heart of the Dolomites, it had attracted a group of people from different parts of Europe to squabble and kill each other over it.
Of all the people whom it had drawn up the slittovia to Col da Varda, I was the only one left alive. They had not been a particularly attractive group of characters: Stefan Valdini, gangster and procurer; Carla Rometta, a crook and little better than a common prostitute; Gilbert Mayne, alias Stuart Ross, deserter, gangster and killer; Keramikos, a Nazi agent with Greek nationality. They had all died because of that gold.
And now — Derek Engles.
He had his faults. But he had been a brilliant and attractive personality. He might have been one of the greats of the film world. And now all that remained of him was a body sprawled lifeless in an easy-chair in a mountain hotel in Italy. He would never direct another film. He had even had to pass on to me the responsibility for telling the story of Col da Varda.
Joe was leaning over the body, ripping the clothing away from the wound in the groin. 'Doesn't look like a bullet,' he said as he laid bare the white skin of the stomach.
I peered over his shoulder. It was more a bruise than a wound. The skin seemed to have been burst open in an irregular, ragged tear. The flesh round it was horribly bruised.
Joe shook his head. 'Something hit him there — and hit him hard.' He examined the rest of the body. There was no sign of any other wound. He straightened up with a grunt. 'He must have known he was dying when he came in,' he said. 'No one could have an injury like that and not know he was finished. I wonder how far away from here it happened. Every step afterwards must have been agony.' He walked to the window and looked out. 'Clouding over, Neil,' he said, letting the curtain drop again. 'If it begins to snow again his tracks will be covered up and we'll never know how it happened.'
'You mean that we ought to follow his ski tracks back whilst we can?' I said.