The Devil_s Steps b-10 Page 13

  “Has Mr. Bagshott been living up here long?” he enquired of his companion, in a whisper.

  “ ’Boutten years, I think,” was her reply.“Thinks himself somebody, too.”

  Bony regarded Bagshott again in the light of this latest information concerning him. Just then he was talking and laughing and his travelling companion and the child were both laughing with him. What he said could not be heard, but he did not have the appearance of a man either conceited or overbearing in personality.

  Still, his feet were of very great interest. If he had made the impressions on the ramp that night Grumman had been murdered, and also the following night on Bisker’s path and about Bisker’s hut, then his feet would become even more interesting.

  Bony was sorry he had to alight before Bagshott. Had the author alighted first he would have been able to see his shoes in clear light as he walked past him to the entrance to the bus.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Clarence B. Bagshott

  LOUNGING ON the Chalet veranda, Bony gazed at the panorama of mountain and valley spread in colourful glory before him. On the wide arms of his chair were a cup of tea and a plate of Mrs. Parkes’s short-bread biscuits.

  At this moment, he was absolutely satisfied with life.

  He was meeting new people and this was always refreshing. They were, of course, vastly different from the people of the interior, but he was coming to understand these southern people, and the growth of understanding added to his interest.

  There was the Watkins pair. They had arranged to have a table in the dining room to themselves. Watkins was heavy-jowled; his wife was big and overloaded with powder and lipstick and jewellery. Why had they insisted upon having a table to themselves when always they spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear? The subject of their conversation was invariably travel-their own travels to New Zealand, Tasmania, and to Sydney. Strange how the sense of inferiority does become manifest. Bisker, and the man then mowing the lawn, had both travelled fifty times more than the Watkins couple, but one never heard either of them mount his travel experiences upon the stand of conversation.

  George never mentioned that he had been a liner steward for six years. He never spoke loudly, assertively. He seemed to be a well-oiled machine running smoothly and gliding silently along the rails of life. There was more in George than in the Watkins couple combined; for underneath his suaveness lay character of a kind, a character felt rather than seen by the sensitive Bonaparte. Bolt had expressed satisfaction with George’s history, a deal of which had been learned from sources other than George himself.

  To compare Miss Jade with the Watkins woman made the latter appear superficial. Although Miss Jade appealed to Bony’s romantic nature, he had to confess that he did not understand her. She possessed character-of that there was no doubt. She could command herself and, therefore, could command others. Never once had Bony seenher a fraction careless in dress or appearance, or in speech. Success in her business was due to that application of self-discipline nicely tempered with the warm feminine traits of sympathy and understanding.

  Of the guests, only Sleeman and Downes were men of character, but whether good or bad Bony was undecided. Raymond Leslie, the artist, was a wind-bag, and Lee, the squatter, appeared to findhimself at a loss in a community uninterested in livestock and fodders. That Wideview Chalet was almost empty of guests appeared to please everyone, including Miss Jade.

  Presently, Bony decided to exert himself by taking a walk and, possibly, both seeing and learning something more of the man Clarence B. Bagshott.

  Not troubling about his hat, he left the veranda and proceeded down the path towards the wicket gate. Fred was pushing the mower across the incline of the lawn to the left of the path, and of that section he had already cut about half. The grass, as Bony had observed, was fine of quality and luscious of growth, but not over-long, although to his own knowledge it had not been cut during the past eight days.

  “The grass doesn’t grow very fast, does it?” he said when Fred had brought the mower to the edge of the path. The man was tall andrangey and about fifty years old. He turned his watery blue eyes upon Bony, who noted the abnormally red nose and the weak mouth.

  “It never grows much this time of the year.” Fred’s drawling voice placed him at once as aninlander.“Juststartin ’ to grow now. Another fortnight, you’ll see how she can grow. Don’t grow longer than a dog’s hair all through winter, but once spring comes there’s nostoppin ’ her. Everything then busts wide open, all of a sudden like.”

  “Well, spring cannot be far off by the feel of the air today,” remarked Bony. “How far up along the highway is the next garage?”

  “Oh-about a mile.” A smile flitted across the man’s weathered face.“I never mind going up the ’ill for a start. If you goesdown’ill for a start yougotta startwalkin ’ up the ’ill to get home.”

  “That’s true,” Bony agreed. “Whereabouts do you live?”

  “Me? Oh-down at the bottom of the road turning off the main road at the fruit shop. I built me own shack down there some ten years back. The road peters out at my shack, and you can go on from there by a track what takes you to The Way of a Thousand Steps.”

  “Way of a Thousand Steps!” repeated the detective. “That sounds romantic.”

  “Yes.” Fred’s eyes regarded the veranda, probably to locate Miss Jade. “Bagshott, the author, give it that name. It’s a gully and there’s a path following the gully from top to bottom and the Reserves Committee at odd times uses the trunks of fern-trees to make stepsso’s that anyone going up or down won’t slip and slide for yards in the mud. The Way of a Thousand Steps begins at the highway where she turns over a stream and it ends ’way down on the edge of the valley forest.”

  “I might take a walk down The Way of a Thousand Steps one of these days. Bagshott’s house-it’s beyond the garage, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, hundred yards or so. You can’t mistake it. Bigcyprus hedge round most of the place. You’ll seea coupler wireless masts in his garden. I was told that the Secret Service was up here during the war about them masts. Looks like that Bagshott was sending wireless messages to Japan or somewhere. Funnysorta bloke, although I think ’e’sall right, him having been a lot outback where people is sort of civilized. You come from outback, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Bony admitted. “So do you. Howd’you like being in these parts?”

  “Oh, it’s all right in a way. But the people! I can’t make ’emout.”

  Bony’s browsrose a fraction and he looked interested. Fred searched the veranda and garden for sight of Miss Jade.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Fred explained. “If you don’t wearno collar and tie you’re a bit of dirt. If youhas a drink, you’re just an outcast. If you tries to be friendly, they spits at you. And if you tell ’emto go to hell, theyscreeches at you and goes around telling all the lies about you they can think up. If it wasn’t for Bisker, I wouldn’t be ’ere. He’s the only civilized one in the district. Cripes! I must bedoin ’ a bit.”

  Miss Jade had emerged from one of thefrench windows opening on to the veranda, and Fred waited no longer. Bony waved a hand, and Miss Jade gaily waved back to him.

  Having passed through the wicket gate and down the ramp, Bony strolled up along the highway. Before long he crossed the road on the lower side of which had been erected white-painted guide posts. Here a gravelled path had been put down, the surface of which was smooth and soft and able to take the impressions of many boots and shoes.

  The first impressions that he recognised were those made by Mr. Watkins and his wife. They were at times overlaying those made by Fred when on his way to work at the Chalet that morning. Much farther on, he found the shoe-prints left by Leslie, the artist, and these several tracks were included among very many others which he had never seen before.

  The highway turned and twisted around the shoulders of the mountain, and on the top side he could see here and there a house, and here and there a grass
paddock widely separated by areas of tall bracken from which towered the smooth and slim trunks of the mast-like mountain ash. Now the road was curving about the slopes of a wide gully and down there grew masses of tree-ferns, the new growth of fronds vividly green against the dark green of the older growth.

  He saw the fruit shop long before he reached it, and when he did so, he accosted a man standing at the door beside a stall loaded with apples and oranges, soft drinks and lollies.

  “Is Mr. Bagshott’s house much farther on?”

  “Aw, no! A couple of chains and a bit. Place with a tall hedge ’round it. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Through the shop door Bony could see several small tables flanked by chairs.

  “Have you got any real dry ginger ale?” he enquired.

  “Too right! The realmackie.”

  The man led the way inside and Bony sat at one of the tables.

  “There aren’t many people on the road today,” he ventured.

  “Never is much during the week. This afternoon and tomorrow there’ll be cars enough-hundreds of ’em.” The shopman set down a bottle of ginger ale and a glass, and at his customer’s invitation, he brought another glass and bottle and sat down opposite the detective.

  “You intend to visit at Bagshott’s?” he enquired.

  “No. I am not acquainted with him,” Bony replied. “Read his books, and then, hearing that he lived up here, I became curious to see his place. I would like to live here myself.”

  The shopman settled down.

  “Some of his books are pretty good, and someain’t so good,” was his verdict. “He can write all right, but he’s a bit wonky in the conk, if you know what I mean. Don’t associate with no one. Told me once that he’s got everyone at bay and intends keeping ’emthere. Don’t blame him much for that, any’ow. They’re a funny lot hereabouts, and it’s me saying it what has lived here for forty-odd years.”

  “What’s the matter with them?” Bony mildly enquired, and the shopman rose to walk to the door to spit. When he returned, he said:

  “Well, you see it’s like this. The mob up here areatwix ’ and between. They’re neither country nor city. There’s two sorts too. There’s the kind what’s come up here to live till death doth claim ’em, and there’s the kind what’s lived here most all their lives-like me. Bagshott don’t care two hoots for either kind, so he told me. All heated up about it, too, when he was telling me. Course, he was mixed up in a murder over inW. A. some years back. I never rightly got to hear the strength of it, but I’ve been told that he sooled a bloke on to do a murder or two.”

  “Indeed!” Bony said, politely.“Mixed up in a murder-or two! Did he go to gaol?”

  “I don’t rightly know about that. Mind you, he’s just the kind to commit a murderso’s he could put it in a book.”

  “H’m! Strange man. He doesn’t appear to have a very good character.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I have heard,” Bony said, lowering his voice. “I have heard that Bagshott has a wireless and that the Secret Service was out during the war trying to trap him sending messages to theJaps. Is that right, do you think?”

  “I think so. I wasn’t up here during the war. Down making munitions. But there was talk of it.”

  “And I heard, too, that he’s friendly with a single woman who has a child by him.”

  The shopman pursed his lips and looked wise. Then he winked both his eyes one after the other. He said:

  “Well, personally speaking, I don’t seenothing wrong with that. Still, that’s what has gone around up here.”

  “And even that he catches rabbits and poisons them to watch them die so that he can use the information in his books,” persisted Bony.

  “Oh, that’s a fact,” claimed the man. “I told him about that once, and he said that in between rabbits he grabs a local dog and tries out some special stuff on them.”

  “And that he never allows his wife to leave the place.”

  “That’s so, but I don’t believe it. I don’t believe in painting a man blacker than he is. He’s black enough, from all that’s said.”

  “Very black,” Bony added with emphasis. “Well, I’ll be getting along. See you another day, perhaps.”

  Continuing his stroll along the path outside the white posts, Bony admitted to himself that Clarence B. Bagshott must have a picturesque personality. It could not be all smoke without some fire, and if he had really been mixed up in one murder-nay, was it not two or more?-he might well be mixed up in the murder of Grumman.

  He passed a house, over the front gate of which was a sign announcing that it was a Police Station, and saw nothing of Sub-Inspector Mason. Then he passed a service garage with its petrol pumps, and finally came in sight of a house, only the roof of which could be seen above the tallcyprus hedge. There was a side road flanking this hedge. One gate opened on to the side road, and there was another gate fronting the main highway. The latter was open, and as he approached it, a car backed out. From the car alighted the man who had been pointed out to him on the bus as Clarence B. Bagshott.

  Bagshott was middle-aged, tall and thin. He was wearing khaki drill trousers, a pair of old boots, a drill shirt and no hat, and by the time he had closed the gate, Bony was standing beside the car. Keen hazel eyes examined him. The breeze lifted dark brown hair growing low to the man’s forehead. And then Bony saw that the hazel eyes recognised him for what he was-a half-caste. He said:

  “You are most fortunate in being able to live up here.”

  Bagshott smiled, saying:

  “Bit of a change from carrying a swag west of the Paroo. What part do you come from?”

  “West of a line from the Paroo River north to Longreach,” replied Bony.

  “Is thatso! ” Bagshott’s face beamed. “I haven’t been out west since ’thirty-two. How’s the country looking?”

  “Very bad just now. Wants rain badly. The stock is poor.”

  “Bad condition to start the summer in, eh? Well, I must be going.” Bagshott went round to get into the car, and then he halted and looked across the bonnet. “I’ve been promising myself a month’s holiday up at Wanaaring. Know it?”

  Bony nodded, his eyes alight, the smell of the place in his nostrils.

  “I’ve promised myself a full month on the beer at Wanaaring,” Bagshott continued. “For the first week I’ll be going around on my hands and knees. After that I’ll be feeling very good. I’ve been a long time away from civilised people. Cheerio!”

  Bony laughed, delightedly. The car was backed out to the centre of the road, and turned to travel down the highway. Bagshott smiled at him as he passed, and Bony continued to walk on. He walked on for perhaps a hundred yards, regarding the painted wireless masts. Then he turned, strolling casually back until he came to Bagshott’s gate, where he paused for two seconds. The marks of the motor tyres were plain on the softened gravel between gate and roadway. So, too, were the impressions of Bagshott’s shoes. They were size twelve. They were soled with rubber, still bearing a well-known trademark. They were the shoes, or the twin of the shoes, that had left impressions on the Chalet ramp and about Bisker’s hut.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Satan Takes a Walk

  IT WAS ON Saturday morning that Bony met and spoke to Clarence B. Bagshott outside the latter’s front gate, and he arrived back at the Chalet to hear the luncheon gong as he was walking up from the highway. It was then one o’clock and Fred was returning from his lunch to his grass-cutting job. He had completed the section of lawn on the left of the path to the wicket gate, and now he prepared to cut the right-hand section. When Bony entered the famous dining room, the other guests were all seated.

  “Been out on the tramp?” asked Raymond Leslie.

  “Yes,” Bony replied.“A great morning for a walk. There’s no doubt about this mountain air making a man hungry. I think I’ve never seen airso clear as it is today. By the way, you’ve been up here some time.
Ever met Clarence B. Bagshott?”

  “I have not. The man’s an utter bounder.”

  “Have you read any of his books?”persisted Bony.

  Raymond Leslie sat bolt upright and the tip of his brown beard moved outward from his narrow chest in what he fondly thought was the Captain Kettle angle. To increase the effect, he set down his knife and fork, before saying:

  “My dear Bonaparte, when I read literature, I read literature, not trash.”

  He spoke so loudly and emphatically that the Watkins couple stopped their high-pitched chatter about trout fishing somewhere in Tasmania, and Bony observed Miss Jade intently listening. The artist had gained the attention of everyone in the room, and he desired to retain it.

  “Educated people don’t read Bagshott’s stuff,” he went on. “No one knows him outside the readers of newspaper serials. Our glorious Australian literature has had too many obstacles to surmount in order to become established without having Bagshott’s tripe added to them. They call his booksAustralian, and people unfortunately read them and judge Australian literature by them.”

  Leslie glared at Bony, who said, meekly:

  “I asked merely if you had read his books. I haven’t because I have not happened to come across one. I asked, too, if you had met Bagshott, as you have been staying up here for some time.”

  “I would not want to meet him, Bonaparte,” Leslie said rudely.

  Thencame the quiet voice of Mr. Downes:

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve read several of his books. I like them. You would not insinuate, Mr. Leslie, that I am not educated?”

  Everyone at Bony’s table looked at Mr. Downes, whose face was now utterly devoid of expression. Leslie was about to say something when he looked into Mr. Downes’s eyes. For three long seconds he stared at Downes, into those dark eyes. He felt a chill down his neck, and he actually stuttered.