The Devil's Steps Page 10

  Here, a little off the path, the impressions made by the large boot or shoe could not be considered as an impression which the wearer would normally make when walking, but the impressions on the path were normally made.

  Bony proceeded towards Bisker’s hut, slowly and with the interest of the guest captivated by the sylvan scene of garden and trees and the smoke-blue view beyond. He came to the hut, and, with his hands clasped behind him, often stopped to admire this and that. He circled the building to see his own tracks and those made by the large-size boot or shoe of the gunman, who had pretended to be drunk and who had also pretended that the hut was an abnormal tree trunk.

  Having made a complete circle of the hut, Bony wandered towards the back fence of the property, then came back, passing along the front of the trees growing at the rear of the hut near the window. He observed that anyone standing under the trees could easily see into the hut when the blind was up and a lamp was lit inside, and there he found again the tracks of the man who wore twelves in footwear.

  A man of the height and weight of that gunman must be deformed in both feet to have to wear so large a boot, and his feet were the only extremities Bony had not noted during the encounter the previous evening.

  Had there been two men acting in alliance—the man wearing the large boots and the gunman? There were the impressions on the path made by boots or shoes size eight, and those might have been on the feet of the gunman. It might not have been the gunman with whom Bony had grappled on one side of the path.

  This matter was occupying him when Bisker approached direct from the rear of the garages.

  “Well, Bisker! How’s the head?” Bony asked the fat little man with the bushy eyebrows and the now-clipped grey moustache. Bisker smiled with his mouth only.

  “I’d forgotten all about it, sir,” he replied, and stared at Bony’s cheek wound. “Looks like you copped it worse than I did. I’m glad to see you back. I’ve found a clue.”

  “Ah!” murmured Bony, theatrically. Bisker glanced furtively all about them as though he had swiftly caught the melodrama in Bony’s voice.

  “Yes, a clue. That gunman, when he was looking for ‘is pens in the shrub tub, leaned with his left ‘and pressing on the earth, and ’e left the marks of every finger and his thumb and the curve of ‘is palm, so’s we can estimate the size and shape of ‘is ‘and. It’s still there, or was when I took me last bird’s-eye view of it.”

  “And that was—at what time?”

  “’Bout two hours back.”

  “Might be useful, Bisker, but we cannot very well examine the impression now. Too many people wandering about. Do you know where we could obtain some plaster of paris?”

  “Too right, I do. There’s some in the tool shed.”

  “Excellent. Later on, after dinner, I’ll make a cast, although it will be difficult in the dark. You might do it with greater success because you know the exact position of the impression. When you’ve finished for the day, bring the plaster to your hut in readiness. How’s your day gone?”

  “Not so bad,” Bisker said, adding after a distinct pause: “One of the detectives grabbed me and made me bring ’im ’ere to the hut. He made me show him all I possessed and then he went through the place looking for something. I asked ’im what he was ‘oping to find and he said he just wanted to look around, sorta.”

  “You don’t really know what he was after?”

  Bisker shook his head.

  “Did you bring him along the path?”

  Bisker grinned.

  “I did not,” he replied, now smiling with both his face and his eyes. “Him and me first went to the tool shed, where he done a lot of fossicking about, and when we left there, remembering what you ’ad tole me about that path, I sort of edged ’im away from it so that we came down along the back fence. After ’e had done ’ere, we sorta made a round trip of the garden, going down as far as the front fence and slewing right to the drive and so back.”

  “To your knowledge, no one has walked on that path since last night?”

  “No one, s’far as I know.”

  “Good!”

  Bony gazed about him like a countryman in a city. Then he pointed at a shrub a little way back along the path and told Bisker to follow him and to pretend to be talking about it, in case someone was observing them. When they were standing before the shrub he asked:

  “Did you by any chance observe the gunman’s feet?”

  “Not partic’ly,” answered Bisker. “After I come to and before I got up I did see that ’e was wearing shoes.”

  “What kind of shoes?”

  “Kind!” Bisker echoed. “Why, just ordinary shoes, I suppose. Lemme think. Yes, they were ordinary shoes—looked a bit big for a bloke of ‘is size—that’s all.”

  “Looked big, eh?” persisted Bony. “Try to think back. I estimated that he weighed about ten stone and that he was about five feet ten or eleven in height. Something like my own weight. I wear a size seven in shoes.”

  Bisker stared hard at the ground and frowned, but he found himself unable to state definitely that the gunman’s shoes were abnormally large, just a “bit big for a bloke of ‘is size.”

  “You have no idea what the detective was after?” Bony continued.

  “Not a glimmer.”

  “At any time yesterday or today, were you asked where you came from before you obtained employment here?”

  “Yes, I was. I told ’em the truth, that I was down from the bush on a bender when I went broke and ’ad to take the job ’ere. Why?”

  Smiling, Bony explained what he thought was the reason for the search. He asked when Bisker’s history was gone into, and Bisker said it had been the day before. That morning he had been interrogated about the stations on which he had worked. Grumman had been poisoned with cyanide, and bushmen may with ease purchase both cyanide and strychnine with their groceries, and use it for poisoning foxes and rabbits for the pelts.

  Bisker began to chuckle and to say repeatedly, “Wot d’you know about that?”

  “Why the happiness?” mildly asked Bony.

  “Well, that’s funny, that is,” chortled Bisker. “If that d. was lookin’ for poison, all ’e ’ad to do was to ask me if I ’ad any and if I’d bin in a good mood, which I wasn’t, I could ’ave produced nearly a full bottle of strych wot I ’ad in me swag when I come to Melbun, and wot’s now in a tin stowed on a roof beam of the ’ut. I put it up there with me reserve of tobacco and a drop of warmin’ fluid for use when things were very, very dry, sort of. That d. never looked up at the roof.”

  “How much is there?”

  “Pretty near a full ounce bottle I put into the tin.”

  Bony sighed, knowing the extraordinary carelessness of bushmen with poisons. He said:

  “Just as well, Bisker, for you that your hoard does not contain a quantity of cyanide and that cyanide wasn’t found in your possession.”

  Bisker wanted to know why, and when Bony told him that Grumman had died from cyanide poisoning, he whistled softly, looked grim for a moment, and then regained his present good humour.

  A raindrop fell upon Bony’s bare head. Already the afternoon was waning into early dusk.

  “I took your blankets back to your room,” Bisker said. “And I laid ’em out under the quilt like you told me. Nearly got nabbed, too, after I got outer the winder. It was that dark that I nearly collisioned with Miss Jade, who was making for the scullery door from the top-road gate. And that was after midnight, too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Meditation

  BONY DECIDED to be particularly charming to Miss Jade. That would not make demands on any reserve of courage or natural shyness, for Miss Jade was far from being repellent and Bony had more to him than a mere brain.

  This decision Bony made immediately on leaving Bisker, when he sauntered through the gentle rain, down along the narrow cinder path to the open space in front of the Chalet; for there was a little more behind the word “intuition” he ha
d uttered to cold Inspector Snook when intimating that he thought the killer of Grumman and the man Marcus were still in the vicinity.

  Standing with the closed door at his back, Bony studied his room. It was fairly large for a bedroom in such an establishment, measuring about twelve by fourteen feet and lighted by double windows in the one frame. The failing daylight increased the shadow by the three-quarter bed and at the foot of the wardrobe, but the plated-backed hairbrush, the buckle of the leather box containing his shaving kit, the pot of hair grease and an ivory stud box all on the dressing table gleamed like old silver.

  A maid had been at work in this room since he left it the previous night. There was nothing out of place. There was not a speck of dust to be seen even if the sunlight had streamed through the windows, now open as they had been all day. On the little bedside table a vase held pink amarias, and on the walls hung framed photographic enlargements of local views of mountain and valley. A sleeping place far removed from the interior of a stockman’s hut, a tent beneath a mulga tree, and that cabin on the lugger in which he had been imprisoned for three weeks by gentlemen in the pay of Japan. It was a bedroom even superior to that occupied by his wife and himself—sometimes—in their own home at Banyo. But who cared about the cost when the money came from somewhere through Colonel Blythe?

  Bisker had explained that a Mr. and Mrs. Watkins now occupied the room on one side of him and that Mr. Sleeman occupied that on the other. He had met Mr. Sleeman, who had been staying at the Chalet for some time. The Watkins couple had arrived only that day.

  Coming back to this room Bony found very pleasant. To one who had spent by far the greater proportion of his professional life in the interior of Australia, such a luxury as this room presented, with its thick floor carpets and electric radiator, was not quickly to be abandoned. Neither was to be abandoned this case of two murders, although Bony’s actual work for Colonel Blythe was completed.

  The electric clock set into the wall, where the visitor could see the time when lying in bed, indicated that it was eighteen minutes to five. The call to dinner would be made at half-past six. The rain was falling ever a little heavier faintly thrumming on the roof. Bony switched on the radiator, drew a lounge chair to sit before it, with the essentials of cigarette manufacture on the wide arms of the chair, he settled down to review the events of the past two days.

  Considering that frankness was the best policy, Bony had confided in Superintendent Bolt by explaining where each of them stood, and in return Bolt made available to the Queenslander copies of statements so far obtained, copies of reports made by the fingerprint-section and also he opened the door to complete co-operation.

  That the murder of Grumman had been “an inside job” Bony’s intuition made him sure, and Bolt was inclined to agree. The poison had been put into his bedroom water carafe, and the one careless omission made by the murderer was to leave the remainder of the poisoned water in the carafe instead of emptying it out, cleaning the vessel and re-filling it. To strengthen Bony’s “intuition” was the fact that the gunman’s clothes had recently been taken from a box or case and worn for the especial occasion of holding up Bisker and himself. This indicated that he had not come an appreciable distance, but rather was living close to Wideview Chalet, if not in the hostel itself.

  From the staff at the Chalet it was known that Grumman’s effects comprised two heavy steamer trunks, three large suitcases, a set of golf clubs in their leather bag, and a smaller leather grip.

  Bony was inclined to accept one of two suppositions. The first was that the murderer had found what he wanted in the two fountain pens, and then decided to remove the body and the baggage to create the thought that Grumman had “skipped it” to avoid paying his dues. He had, however, failed somewhere in his planning, and after Rice was shot, believing he would come under suspicion, had hidden the pens in the shrub tub. The second was that, for a reason unknown, Grumman himself had pushed the pens into the earth of the shrub tub. In doing this he had been observed by the man who later held up both Bony and Bisker, a man who knew what the pens contained, and who, therefore, could be absolved from the murder of Grumman. It would seem that on that night there were two men after Grumman’s secrets brought out from Germany.

  That the man Marcus was associated with Grumman’s murder, or with the man who had held up Bony and Bisker, appeared unlikely. Knowing Grumman to be dead, Marcus would hardly arrive at the Chalet the next morning asking for him, and come openly without disguising himself other than by removing his moustache. He had not even taken into his reckoning the long chance of meeting a policeman, and that he was confronted by one who had recognised him was as unfortunate for him as it had been for Constable Rice.

  Marcus was no fool. He had been an actor. He had earned big money as a mimic. For every occasion he had been obliged to shoot his way out of a corner, there had been a dozen occasions when he had slipped through the fingers of the cleverest officers by his gifts of mimicry and disguise.

  Bony argued that if Marcus had come to see Grumman from Melbourne, he would have adopted a better disguise than merely shaving off his moustache, otherwise he would have run grave danger of recognition by a smart policeman on beat duty or by a smart traffic patrolman, for Melbourne is fifteen to twenty miles across in any direction. It appeared more than likely that Marcus had spent the night Grumman was murdered in a house not so far from Mount Chalmers, and that he foresaw no danger of recognition by any chance-met policeman after leaving his lodging to visit Grumman.

  With all this, Superintendent Bolt agreed, and until all likely areas where Marcus could lie up had been combed, the road patrols out of the wider Mount Chalmers district were to be maintained.

  Bony smiled and felt exhilarated. It was just a lovely case for him. A glorious mix-up of a case, and in sweet addition, he was to have competition from the Victorian C.I.B. team under the renowned Superintendent Bolt. He would be given all assistance—up to a point. He, Bony, would collaborate—up to a point. To add zest, there was a distinct spice of danger, a taste of which he had already experienced. What had astonished Bolt and Snook was that Marcus, on being named by Rice before Miss Jade and Bisker, had not shot them both dead. Had he done so it would not have been known that he was in Victoria.

  It was almost dark when he rose and drew down the window blinds before snapping on the light. It was half-past five. He would set out his evening clothes, obtain a clean shirt and collar and under-clothes from his case, and then after he had dressed he would seek Miss Jade’s assistance in attending to his cheek wound.

  The dinner clothes were in the wardrobe. The coat hung from a wooden hanger, as did the trousers. He took the garments one at a time to examine them directly beneath the light, a slight frown puckering his eyes. Within the coat was a silver cigarette case containing cigarettes of good quality which were kept to smoke when “in polite company.” Within the case were ten cigarettes. The coat was not on the hanger as he had placed it the night Grumman was killed. The cigarettes within the case had been moved and not put back exactly as he had left them.

  Bony unstrapped his suitcase, and raised the lid. Every article he removed after having noted its position, and as he took the shirt, collar and under-wear to lay on the bed, he was convinced that all his effects had been moved, examined, and then carefully replaced—but not exactly as they had been found.

  He was quite sure of it, because he had himself taken care to memorise the position of every article he possessed during those twenty minutes he had been away from Bisker’s hut. Nothing had been taken, not even one of the thirty-eight pound notes stuffed into a pocket of the suitcase.

  There were no documents of any kind for the scrutineer to examine. Bony had deposited all his papers with Colonel Blythe before first coming to Wideview Chalet.

  Chapter Twelve

  Interest in Grumman’s Luggage

  “OH, GOOD AFTERNOON, Mr. Bonaparte!”

  Miss Jade was wearing a dinner frock of black chiff
on trimmed with white satin. Her black hair gleamed beneath the electric light of the reception hall, and her make-up was perfection itself.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Jade,” he murmured, bowing in his inimitable manner. In a dinner suit, he appeared more like the conventional Indian Rajah than the bushman he more generally appeared. His hair, as black as Miss Jade’s, also gleamed in the light. His dark face emphasised the whiteness of his collar, but there was nothing sinister in the face lightened and animated by the smiling blue eyes. The white teeth almost matched the collar.

  “What have you been doing to your cheek?”

  Bony made the explanation he had offered to George, and then quoted the steward as an authority for believing that Miss Jade possessed a surgical box.

  “Why, of course, Mr. Bonaparte,” Miss Jade said warmly. “You go along to the office, and I’ll bring the outfit. It is a nasty gash! Have you done anything for it at all?”

  “Well, yes, my friend provided me with a salve,” replied Bony. “He said shove it on. It cleanses as well as heals. The word ‘shove’ is his, by the way.”

  Miss Jade stepped close and with the tips of her fingers gently examined the cut. Watching, he noted her eyes narrow just a fraction, and he appreciated that, for it indicated that Miss Jade was not as cold as her demeanour might suggest.

  “It’s quite clean that’s certain. I won’t be a minute,” she told him, before flowing out of the reception hall on her errand of mercy.

  Within the office he encountered the secretary, a fair-haired girl about twenty-two, not too good-looking, an excellent foil for Miss Jade’s personality—an item, no doubt, which Miss Jade had had in mind when she engaged Miss Philps. She looked up from her work when Bony entered, in her eyes the shadow of recent events.

  “I have been instructed by Miss Jade to wait here for her,” Bony announced, smiling in his friendly manner. “You won’t mind?”