The Devil's Steps Page 16

  Eventually the valley, fields and paddocks and the forest areas came up out of the chasms to meet the sun and lie spread before Bony’s enchanted eyes.

  The only jarring note was the voice of Mrs. Watkins constantly repeating the phrase: “Oh, how lovely!”

  The second event which made this a memorable day for Bonaparte occurred in the afternoon when, having decided he would take a walk up the highway, he arrived outside the rear portion of the garden belonging to Clarence B. Bagshott. This rear portion was not bounded by a hedge, and just over the fence the mystery-story writer himself was trenching a plot of ground.

  Bony leaned against an iron fence post and rested his arms along the topmost barbed wire. A little to the left was the gateway to Bagshott’s garage. Before him, and beyond Bag-shott, were the two wireless masts, the subject of the conjecture that the owner had been in touch with Japan. Then Bagshott plunged his spade into the firm earth and stooped to poke at something with a stick, and this action so aroused the curiosity of the watching Bonaparte that he called out:

  “What have you found?”

  Bagshott turned towards Bony.

  “Hop over the fence and come and see,” he shouted.

  It was not an easy fence to “hop over,” but Bony managed it without damage to his clothes and joined Bagshott, to see him turning over with the stick what appeared to be an undersized soft-shelled egg.

  “Ever seen one of these before?” the author asked without looking up.

  “No. What is it?”

  “The naturalist gentry call it the Clathrus Gracilis, but ordinary people name it the net fungus. When this thing, looking like a small egg, ‘hatches’ or ruptures there is expelled a net which unravels large enough to cover a tennis ball and at the same time disperses its spores. I’ve never seen one ‘hatching,’ but I’m hoping. I found a net a few minutes ago. Let’s try and find it. Over here.”

  Bagshott strode across his land, followed by the smaller man whose interest in life included all things. Bony noted in a detached manner how Bagshott lifted his feet in the over-large shoes he was wearing. They were old shoes from which the gloss had long since been removed by the rough usage they had undergone. However, the subjects of tracks and homicide were now being swiftly swept into a mental cupboard to give room for this new interest which was claiming both their minds.

  “Ah—here it is!”

  Bagshott halted and stooped and Bony stooped with him. He saw a delicate net-like object which would cover a tennis ball. It was springy and stained with dull browns and a dull green. No strand of the net was broken.

  “I understand that there are considerably over fifty thousand species of fungi,” remarked Bony, taking up the specimen in his hands. “I’ve never seen this kind before. Rather wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Bagshott was regarding the fungus lying in Bony’s hands. “Don’t know much about ’em myself,” he went on. “There are some fine specimens of ‘Shelf’ or ‘Saddle’ fungi to be found growing on the underside of fallen trees down in the gullies about here. Got one or two in the house. They keep well. But this basket one beats the band. You wouldn’t think that all that network could have come from so small a container, would you? I understand that when it springs out from the shell it sheds its spores and then swells through its power to absorb moisture.”

  “There must be many wonderful things up on this mountain,” Bony said, and found Bagshott’s hazel eyes regarding him. “It is a charming place. I looked at the fog lying in the valley this morning for almost two hours. Never thought there was such a place in Australia. You know, you’re very lucky to be able to live here. Interested in natural history and that kind of thing?”

  “Yes—superficially. There are many strange things even in this garden. Sometimes I dig up a yabbie. You wouldn’t think to find them so far above the nearest gully stream, and they are almost white. You want to take a walk well off the road at night and listen to the earth-worms. They make a sucking noise, like water going down a bath outlet. They’re yards in length, too. Come on in. I’ll show you that Shelf fungi.”

  Bony was taken out of this part of Bagshott’s garden which was devoted to the cultivation of vegetables and raspberries, conducted through an arch in the dividing hedge and into the garden surrounding the house, where ornamental trees and flowering shrubs inhabited a secluded world. His eyes were busy with the surface of the paths, too. Everywhere he saw the imprints of Bagshott’s shoes, and not only of those shoes the man was then wearing. All these imprints had the same peculiarities, revealing the maker of them to be mentally energetic, slightly neurotic, and longer in the right leg than the left.

  Having wandered through city botanical gardens and having seen many gardens laid out with unnatural orderliness, this garden was a new experience to Bonaparte. Here and there he saw foreshortened vistas in which things appeared to grow just as Nature placed them, and he thought that the sacrifice of the view was worth it. Bagshott was saying in reply to a remark Bony had made:

  “Yes, beautiful district. But like everything else, the human animal comes to appreciate beauty less as he becomes more familiar with it. There are days when I pine for an inland gibber plain, and want to have to strain my eyes to see the distant horizon. I’d give all this for the outback. A man can become too respectable.” He chuckled and glanced back at Bony. “Sometimes I find respectability very wearing. One of these days I am going to break out.”

  “You lived for many years, didn’t you, outback?”

  “About twenty,” replied Bagshott. “Got around a bit too.”

  “And are you really determined to have a month at Wanaaring?”

  “Too right I am,” replied Bagshott forcibly. “Been out of the bush for ten years now. Haven’t had a holiday since before the war, and I’m becoming dyspeptic, mentally unbalanced and affected by advanced senile decay. So would you be, too, if you lived in a place like this for long. Come on in.”

  Bony was taken into a small room furnished with a writing desk, a lounge, stiff-backed chairs and book-cases crowded with volumes. On the walls hung framed original drawings of illustrations of the man’s stories. There hung also the skin of what appeared to be an enormous snake.

  “What d’you think of that?” Bagshott asked on observing Bony regarding it. “Nice specimen, eh? Shot it myself. See the shot-mark? Measured twenty-three feet in length.”

  It was beautifully marked with green lines branching outward from a central grey ribbon, all on a ground of dull brown, and Bony was wholly taken in.

  “That,” said Bagshott, “that is a piece of bark from a mountain-ash gum. Remarkable likeness to a snake’s skin, isn’t it?”

  Bony had to finger the bark before he could accept the reality.

  “Well, now, sit down and behave yourself,” Bagshott commanded, and waved his visitor into a chair.

  Bony was startled, being unaware that he was misbehaving, and then his eyes gleamed with humour, for his host meant nothing more than to put him at ease. He was shown the specimen of the Shelf fungi, which had been lightly varnished and was as hard as stone and appeared to be indestructible. He was holding it in his hands when his host vanished.

  Left alone without explanation, Bony gazed round the room in which mystery stories were concocted. It was very masculine, and comfortable though small, and it looked out upon ornamental trees backed by the tall hedge that banished the highway to the far end of the world. Quite by accident, he espied on the mantel above the great open fireplace an exceptionally large fish-hook.

  He was fingering this hook when Bagshott came in. His mind was hundreds of miles away. He was seated in the stern of a launch, with his electrified hands poised above the great reel attached to the rod, through the guides of which hundreds of feet of stout cord were being swept away into the dancing sea by the great fish which had taken his bait. And then when his mind clicked back to the present he looked up to see Bagshott regarding him with a strange expression.

 
“If you ever want to be really and properly alive,” he said, “go and angle for swordfish.”

  “I have been really and properly alive,” averred Bony.

  “You have! Where?”

  “Off Bermagui. Have you been there?”

  “Too blinking right!” Bagshott almost shouted, his eyes alight and in them strange fires. “Come here.”

  Bony was practically hauled from his chair and dragged out of the room into another, where mounted on a plaque was the head of a marlin. Bony stood in the centre of the room, looking upward at the gleaming sea-green-and-blue specimen of the greatest fighting fish in all the oceans. Bagshott was talking game fish, but what he said did not register in Bony’s mind, for Bony’s brain had become a torch set on fire by the head and sword of the fish and by the huge hook he still carried in his hands. He could smell the sea. He could feel the tautness of every nerve whilst waiting for the moment to strike. A million pictures passed before the eyes of his inner mind, and he lived again through the greatest moments of his life.

  Then he and Bagshott were asking questions of each other and not waiting for the answers. Mrs. Bagshott came in and her husband did not give him time to acknowledge the conventional introduction. She had accompanied her husband on his fishing expeditions, and she knew the background equally with him and this stranger to her house.

  For five minutes all talked at the same time, Bony being shown photographs of fish and sea-scenes, and views of the coast which he readily recognised and which brought out of the store of memory incidents of his own experiences. Then he was being rushed by the volcanic Bagshott back into his study, where on the desk Mrs. Bagshott had set a tray of tea and cakes. His hostess was valiantly trying to ascertain if he took sugar or not, milk or not, and he being badgered by questions by his host concerning big game angling, so that he began to lose the sense of knowing whether he were on his head or toes.

  Yet he thoroughly enjoyed it, and Mrs. Bagshott did not appear at all fearful of being buried in the garden, although it is wonderful what mountains are removed by faith—and/or arsenic. He left them standing at their garage gate, and began his walk back to the Chalet, his mind a little chaotic with the admixture of Net and Shelf fungi, swordfish, snake-skin cum tree bark, and the impressions left on earth by a pair of large shoes.

  He was halfway clown the road to the guest house when Mason met him, Mason returning from the city in his car. Without getting out, the Sub-Inspector told him that he had the bust of Marcus, and Bony wanted to take and kick the bust of Marcus to pieces. Mason had other information, and Bony agreed to call back at the Police Station later that evening. Bony told him he had been calling on Bagshott, and Mason asked if he was considering the fellow’s arrest.

  “Arrest!” echoed Bony. “Arrest—nothing! Why, I’m going swordfishing with Bagshott and his wife.” And he left Mason looking after him from the car door, on his face an expression of blank bewilderment.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bony Entertains

  THE BAROMETER hanging on the wall of the reception hall at Wideview Chalet began to fall at about four o’clock, and when Bony arrived back from his visit to the Bagshotts’ the sky was festooned with white streamers heralding wind and rain.

  He found Sleeman and the artist in the lounge and was invited to join them in a drink, and thereupon he stipulated one round only, knowing that he had work to do at the Police Station before he retired to bed that night.

  To his surprise, Alice, the maid, brought the order, and when she was questioned about the absence of George she explained that George had received a telephone call from the city. He had obtained leave of absence for the rest of the day and would not be back until the coming of the first bus from Manton the following morning. As she presented the serving tray to Sleeman, he placed the tip of a finger on the back of her hand and said:

  “You see to it that the scullery door is kept closed tonight, Alice. We don’t want any more nerve shocks like that one you gave us the other night. All that fuss over a rat.”

  The girl flushed.

  “I hate rats,” she said. “They make me shiver all over. I don’t mind snakes. I’ve killed several upon my dad’s place, but rats I abominate, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Having received back the chit-book signed by Sleeman, Alice tripped away through the service door, and Raymond Leslie began a story which did not greatly interest Bonaparte, who was glad to get away after forcing a smile at the tale’s climax.

  At dinner, he found Downes absent and, remarking on this, he was informed that Downes had had visitors that afternoon and had gone off with them. Bony was also informed that the Watkins couple had left. Thereupon, observing Miss Jade seating herself at her solitary table, he arose and crossed the almost forlorn dining room and bowed to her.

  “Madam, I seek your favour,” he said softly.

  Miss Jade gazed upward into the beaming eyes and decided that he was not being cynical or trying to be funny. With his left hand, he indicated the table at which sat only three men.

  “If you would take dinner at our table, Miss Jade,” he said, “we would be honoured, and I feel sure that we would at least attempt to talk interestingly.”

  Miss Jade rose to her feet.

  “It is most kind of you, Mr. Bonaparte,” she said in the tone of voice she always used with her guests. “I would be delighted. Tomorrow we have quite an influx of guests, and the place will no longer seem deserted.”

  “That is bad news,” Bony said gravely. “A houseful of guests will distract your mind from us fortunate men here this evening.” They crossed to the one guest table in use and Bony said, grandly: “Gentlemen, Miss Jade had done us the great honour of consenting to dine with us. I have promised that we will talk intelligently.”

  “We’ll do our best in that respect,” Lee, the squatter, boomed, placing the chair for Miss Jade.

  That dinner, with Miss Jade as a member of his table, was the third item of that day which Bony was to remember for many a year. Miss Jade’s presence was a stimulant to them all, and they were a stimulant to her. She was vivid, and a good foil to the artist and to Bonaparte.

  A few minutes after half-past eight Bony entered the Mount Chalmers Police Station, and there to his surprise he found Superintendent Bolt with Mason. At his entry into the office, Mason slipped outside to close the front door. Bolt, observing Bony’s dinner clothes, said:

  “There’s no doubt that some fellers strike lucky patches in life. Lolling around all day, and eating and swilling at the taxpayers’ expense when ordinary men like me and Mason have to work for a crust.”

  “It’s a crying shame, Super,” Bony lamented. “But tell me the reason for your tour this evening in a flash car run at the taxpayers’ expense.”

  “Just came along to see you, Bony,” rumbled the huge man. “Friend of yours rang me to ask if I would call on you just to make sure you haven’t gone batty. Seems to think the old mind’s got off the rails.”

  “Really!”

  Bolt nodded and pushed across the foolscap envelope.

  “From Colonel Blythe,” he explained. “The Colonel said there’s an enclosure from your Chief Commissioner to himself, and that I was to be sure that you read it. Seems to think that too much luxury is affecting your brain, and advises you to take the hint given by your Chief Commissioner and go home.”

  Bony lifted his gaze from his task of rolling a cigarette. There was no answering smile on his face. He said, slowly:

  “There are times when my Chief, and others whom I will not name, causes me intense weariness. It is my Chief’s paramount failing to assign me to a case and then impatiently demand instant results. He lent me to Colonel Blythe, and almost immediately demanded my return. I’d not like to think where I would have got in my career if I had ever taken the slightest notice of him. Now then, let us to work—business before pleasure. Have you any developments to announce?”

  Superintendent Bolt sighed and shook his head.

&nbs
p; “Marcus has slipped us,” he admitted. “And none of Grumman’s luggage has come to light, nary a single item of it. I’m getting a bit worried at the nix results, and our Commissioner is a bit like yours in the expectation of results. What d’you know?”

  “That patience always wins the game,” Bony replied. “Have you done anything in re-checking up on those people I named to Mason?”

  “Yes.” Bolt took a notebook from a pocket and from it abstracted several flimsies.

  “The woman, Eleanor Jade, is all correct so far as background goes. She began in a small way, and worked up. There’s nothing whatever against her, and when she applied for her drink licence she was supported by the police in her application. Everything is plain and straight-forward. The same can’t be said about the drinks steward, George Banks. He told us that he’d been in Miss Jade’s employ for over three months, and that prior to being engaged by Miss Jade he had been working at various hotels following discharge from the Air Force. Now he did work at several hotels during the periods stated in the references he showed to us, but when we described him to the licensees who had written the references, not one could recognise him. Banks is dark and pale of face and of medium weight but the man recalled by the reference-writers all agree that the George Banks employed by them was six feet tall, thin, fair-haired and grey-eyed. We think that George Banks is not that steward’s name, and that he pinched or borrowed the references. The real George Banks hasn’t been traced so far. I haven’t had the Chalet steward hauled over the coals, remembering our agreement about spheres of activity.”

  “Thank you, Super. What about the guests?”

  “Well, your artist pal, Raymond Leslie, is clear enough,” Bolt went on. “Very well known in his line and the double check failed to shoot holes in his statement. Your other pal, Wilfred Dowries, wasn’t staying at Wideview the night of Grumman’s murder. I sent a man to make a few enquiries from Miss Jade while you all were having lunch. Miss Jade stated that to the best of her knowledge Downes is just a gentleman of leisure. Away back in 1937 he stayed at her guest house at St. Kilda, stayed with her for about six weeks. He rang her on the ‘phone during the evening of that day Grumman was found dead, and then stated he had learned of her new venture up here and asked if he could be given accommodation. That’s all we know so far about him. We haven’t completed the check on Lee and the Watkins people.”