'What had I written — please tell me.' There was a tremor in her voice.
'It was to Heinrich,' I told her.
A sigh escaped her lips and she was silent for a moment. Then she said, 'You seem to know much of my affairs. Stefan tells me that you were at the auction this morning and that you know he was trying to buy Col da Varda on my behalf. How did you know that?'
'Edoardo Mancini told me,' I replied.
'That ugly old pig!' She gave a short laugh. 'Nothing can happen in Cortina but he knows about it.
He is a tarantula. Did he tell you who bought it? That little man who bid against Stefan, he was only a lawyer.'
'No,' I said. 'He did not tell me. But he said the lawyer belonged to a Venetian firm that handled the financial affairs of big industrial concerns. I think he feared that a powerful hotel or tourist syndicate had bought it.'
'Perhaps,' she said. 'But it is strange. Big financiers do not pay fancy prices for places like Col da Varda.' She shrugged her shoulders. 'You ask yourself why I was prepared to pay so much, is that not so?'
'It certainly interests me,' I told her.
'But why?' she asked, and there was a note of irritation in her voice. 'Why are you so interested in my affairs? You are here to write a story for the cinema — so everyone is told. But you have my picture. You know my real name. You are interested enough in Col da Varda to attend the auction. What is all this to you? I insist that you tell me.'