The Devil's Steps Page 21

  “That’s what makes the work all the more interesting,” Bony countered. “Did you get anything on that William Jackson, the owner of the Studebaker?”

  Bolt glared at Mason, and the Sub-Inspector produced a flimsy.

  “Nothing known against Jackson,” he read. “Paint manufacturer. Office in Flinders Lane. Works at East Richmond.”

  “Does the report not state if he owns a house here?” enquired Bony.

  “No. But—I’ve got a list of every house owner on the Mount.”

  “Have a look for William Jackson.”

  Mason became busy with a file, running his finger-tip down the columns of names. Then:

  “Ah! Yes! William Jackson owns a place named Ridge House. I know it. It’s about two miles down the highway.”

  “Strikes the bell, looks like,” growled Bolt on observing the mirthless grin which flashed into Bony’s blue eyes. “By crikey! I’ve an even better mind to put you away for safety sake.”

  “Super—if you make a move off the wrong foot you’ll lose your dear friend, Marcus,” Bony told him. To Mason, he said:

  “On a road leading from Wideview Chalet, which then turns left, there is a house standing behind a line of fir trees. Who lives there?”

  Mason’s mind raced.

  “A woman named Mrs. Eldridge and her daughter. The daughter is a confirmed invalid.”

  “Thank you, Mason. And you, too, Super.” Bony put on his hat. “I’ll be getting along. I’ll call again tomorrow evening at this time. Cheerio!”

  “One minute,” snapped Bolt. He also stood up. “Will you let us plant one of our fellers in that Chalet, just to keep an eye on you when your back is turned to prevent a bullet? Got a man who can do the play-boy act very well.”

  Bony shook his head. He smiled into Bolt’s worried eyes.

  “I’ll be all right, Super. Tomorrow night, perhaps I will be able to give you the hammer to strike the gong.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Mick the Tickler’s Story

  THE FOLLOWING evening, when towards eleven o’clock Superintendent Bolt and Sub-Inspector Mason had decided that Bony would not be calling at the Mount Chalmers Police Station, they heard his voice assuring the wife of the Senior Constable that he could find his way to the office.

  “Must have come in by the back door,” observed Mason.

  “He can come down the chimney so long as he does come,” growled Bolt. He gave vent to one of his tremendous sighs and then added: “I was becoming fed up. Now you keep quiet and listen. He might make a remark indicating who he thinks is Marcus.”

  The door was opened and Bony came in, glanced at the cheap clock over the fireplace and beamed at the seated men who had been impatiently waiting for him for more than two hours. Mason regarded him with an impassive face; the big man glared. Bony said:

  “Sorry I’m late, but I was persuaded to play a game of draughts with one of the guests. He proved to be a very good player and I wasn’t able to bring the game to an end until half-past ten.”

  “Interesting game, eh?”

  “Very,” Bony assented, seating himself opposite the Superintendent at the desk. “My opponent was clever with his kings. You would like to know him, I am sure. I’ll introduce him to you one day. He would be certain to enjoy a game or two with you.”

  “I’m not much interested in draughts—just now,” Bolt said, rudely.

  “You ought to be interested in draughts at any time, day or night,” Bony said, as he rolled a cigarette. “Great brain exerciser and also it sharpens one’s interest in one’s fellow men. Well well! What have you got for me tonight?”

  “One of your friends in the bag, and another of your pals in the mortuary.”

  “H’m! A little progress, eh? I hope you don’t think you’ve got friend Marcus in the mortuary.”

  “A milkman, when on his rounds this morning, found the body of a man lying just inside the front gate of a house in Coburg. The occupants of the house state that they heard a car stop in the street at something to three o’clock this morning, and as they state that they don’t know the dead man, it is assumed that he was carried from the car to the place where the body was found. The gate, by the way, is midway between two street lights. The body is that of your friend George Banks.”

  Whilst Bolt had been speaking, Bony regarded him with brows slightly raised, and if the Superintendent expected to see astonishment lower those fine brows he must have been disappointed. When Bony made no comment, he went on:

  “In the pockets were employment references in favour of George Banks. There were two letters from Mick making appointments for past dates. There was a pair of thin rubber gloves and a wallet containing Treasury notes to the value of fifty-three pounds. Besides a few silver coins, there was a heavy solid-gold cigarette case with the initials ‘B.G.’ engraved on it.”

  “No pistols, of course?” Bony commented.

  “No pistols.”

  “And death was due to...?”

  “A bullet in the brain—following a bashing.”

  “Dear me!”

  The small brown eyes of the Superintendent bored into the wide blue eyes of Inspector Bonaparte. He said:

  “The obvious assumption for the bashing was the need for information.”

  Bony nodded his head in agreement.

  “Either desperate need or iron determination to get it,” he said. “The gold cigarette case bearing Grumman’s initials is an interesting item. The rubber gloves are still another. Who of my friends have you arrested?”

  “Mick the Tickler. We located him on a Black Funnel liner now in port. Ship was due to sail tomorrow. We took him to view the body. After that, he broke down and gave us a statement. Here is a copy of it.”

  Bony accepted the sheets without speaking, lit another cigarette and leaned back in his chair to read:

  My full name is Michael Francis O’Leary and I was born in Sydney in the year 1907. My father was Irish and my mother English. I had one brother, Daniel, who was born in London in 1911.

  Early in 1945 I was in Germany on an especial assignment, being then in the employment of the British Government. I was thus employed because, having completed my education in Germany and subsequently got around a good deal in that and other European countries, I was able to speak the language without accent and was familiar with the German psychology. And also because I have always been able to manage women.

  While on that particular assignment, I met the mistress of a high Army officer by the name of Lode and through the woman I learned that he was a member of the German General Staff. Lode was infatuated with the woman, and as the woman became infatuated with me, I found myself in a strong position.

  In March of that year, the collapse of Germany was seen to be inevitable by the German General Staff and Major General Lode was commissioned to take out of the country certain highly secret formulas of both drugs and explosives, and much other information of great importance to the General Staff, the members of which knew that it would be forced to dissolve for several years after the defeat and occupation by the Allies. At some future date, it could be reorganised and set about the job of preparing for the next attempt to conquer the world.

  The possibility of defeat, it seems, had been recognised before the war, when it was recognised also that Hitler would start a war before the country was ready for it.

  In the United States there was a man named Grumman, a German who had been naturalised shortly after the first World War. He visited Germany in 1937 or 1938, when it was discovered that he was remarkably like Lode, and the following plan was then arranged.

  It being decided by the General Staff that their secrets must be sent out of the country for safe-keeping until such time as it could be reorganised, photographs of the formulas and plans, etc., were made and reduced to the size of pin heads on micro-film. The film was to be wound on spools and inserted into two fountain pens. Two other similar copies were to be made, a set of each to be taken charge
of by two other officers, who also were to get out of the country before the crash took place. I know nothing about them.

  Lode left Germany by submarine and landed somewhere on the coast of Florida. He was met by Grumman, who handed over all his identification papers, his personal effects and details of his business. Grumman went aboard the submarine and returned to Germany. Lode became Grumman, an American citizen.

  I left Germany early in April 1945, having accomplished the work for the British Government. Certain officials objected to my severance with their department, but I gave them no chance to kick.

  Early this year I arrived in Australia on the same ship with Grumman. On the ship I chummed up with Grumman, who was Lode, and I recommended to him Wideview Chalet on Mount Chalmers as a good place to stay at nice and quiet and away from the city. I did that because I knew my young brother had a job there as drinks steward, and thought that he and I between us could rat Grumman of his secrets, which would sell for enough hard cash to put my brother and me on velvet for the rest of our lives.

  Grumman landed in Sydney. So did I. Unknown to him, I kept him under observation during the whole week he was in Sydney. No German contacted him. He came to Melbourne by rail, and I came here on the same train. For a week he stayed at the Australia, so did I. Still no one contacted him. Then he took my advice and went to stay at Wideview Chalet and I went up there and stayed at another guest house.

  My brother kept me informed of Grumman’s actions and habits. Grumman felt himself to be perfectly safe, for he adopted no extraordinary means against molestation and/or theft. During his absences at night, when he went out for a short walk before going to bed, my brother Daniel went through his gear, and Daniel was a master at that sort of thing. He didn’t find the pens, and I did not expect that he would, although there was the distinct possibility that they were buried in the leather of his steamer trunks or in the soles of a pair of used shoes he would not actually wear.

  I was sure that he still had the pens, that he had not passed them to anyone else, and that he would never do that until he was instructed to do so by a member of the German “Order of the Swords,” a secret Prussian military organisation which is said to be higher still than the German General Staff.

  Daniel told me that shortly after Grumman arrived at Wideview Chalet there arrived also a man named Sleeman. Daniel got wise to Sleeman when he saw him sneaking out of Grumman’s bedroom window when Grumman was out for his usual short walk. We could not make up our minds what Sleeman was—whether he was just an ordinary crook after what he could pick up or was a member of some organisation after Grumman’s secrets. Daniel said he drank pretty freely during the evenings, but Sleeman was the type of man who is on top when there’s whisky inside him, and he made the most of this by pretending he was semi-drunk when the reverse was the case.

  I felt confident that Grumman still had the pens in his possession. His higher-ups chose pens in which to conceal the micro-film, because in addition to fountain pens being very ordinary objects they have to be kept in a top pocket of a civilian waist-coat and therefore draw attention to themselves every time their owner changes his clothes, like an ordinary watch and chain which crosses a man’s stomach and has to be handled every time he undresses. I was positive that when Grumman took off his day clothes he would pin the pens in their holder to the pocket of his pyjamas coat.

  When Grumman was visited by two men and two women, I began to be anxious. It was the first time since he had arrived in Australia that any friends came out of the blue to contact him, and so I decided we could not delay any longer.

  The night that Grumman was murdered, Daniel added a stiff bromide to his last drink before going to bed. He doped Sleeman’s drink, too. That was before eleven o’clock, when the veranda light was switched off.

  When the veranda light was put out at eleven o’clock, I went up from the road to the veranda and waited outside Grumman’s windows. After about an hour the windows were opened from the inside by Daniel. I went in, drew the curtains and the blinds and switched on the light. Instead of Grumman being held by the bromide, we found that he was dead. He did not die from the bromide because Sleeman got the same measure.

  We did not know what killed Grumman, but I got the idea then, and still have it, that Sleeman poisoned the water in the carafe, because Grumman had poured some into a glass and drunk it—Sleeman intending to overhaul Grumman as we had planned to do after giving him the bromide. Anyway, believing that Sleeman had poisoned Grumman, and knowing that Sleeman would be asleep for at least four hours, we went over the body and found the pens pinned into the pockets of the pyjamas coat. Daniel actually took the pens, and both of us being upset at finding Grumman dead, I did not think to take them with me when I left, walking down the main lawn to the main road.

  The next morning, a man whom I don’t know called on Grumman and shot a policeman. Daniel got the wind up, and when he went to bolt the front door to keep out the guests until the police arrived, he pushed the pens in their holder into the earth of a tub where a shrub was growing, thinking that he might be searched by the police.

  After the first fuss and examination was over, Daniel saw towards evening that the yardman was most interested in that shrub tub. And so, when after dark he went to the tub to get the pens and found that they had been taken, he naturally assumed that the yardman had seen him push them into the tub and had taken them.

  He reached the hut in time to see a guest named Bonaparte going in, and he thought that this guest wanted the yardman to run an errand or do something for him the next day. After Bonaparte left the hut, Daniel stuck up the yardman, but the yardman swore that Bonaparte had taken the pens. Daniel put the yardman to sleep, but he found that he had spoken the truth because the pens were not on him. He went after Bonaparte, and then he saw him coming back to the hut. After Bonaparte had been inside for a few minutes, Daniel got him to open the door by playing a ruse. He stuck up Bonaparte and got the pens from him.

  I forgot to state that before sticking up the yardman, Daniel changed into an old suit of clothes and made a mask for his face out of a neckerchief.

  Bonaparte went away from Wideview Chalet late that night and did not return till the following afternoon.

  Eventually, after waiting for the police to calm down, I telephoned to Daniel and he arranged to come to the city. We met in a cafe and Daniel produced the pens. I found in the end of each a screw which, I knew, was attached to a spool round which was wound the microfilm inside either pen.

  The guest named Bonaparte must have removed the micro-film while he was away from the yardman’s hut, and he must have taken it to the city to hand it over to someone there.

  I have viewed the body of my brother, Daniel. The foul work done on him before he was killed is the kind of work that the German “Order of the Swords” would do to get from him the whereabouts of the contents of the pens. Who Sleeman and Bonaparte are working for, I don’t know, but I am sure neither of them belong to the “Order,” as they would not be eligible.

  Bony set down the statement on the desk and, without commenting, manufactured a cigarette. Bolt remained silent until after Bony had struck a match, and then said:

  “Well, what d’you think of that?”

  “Have you seen Colonel Blythe and shown this statement to him?” enquired Bony.

  “Yes. He says that O’Leary was an espionage agent employed by the British Government, and that the first part of the statement might be substantially correct.”

  “That’s my view, Super. With regard to several matters in the latter part, I think that the statement is far from being correct. O’Leary denies complicity in the actual poisoning of Grumman, saying that his brother added a sleeping potion to Grumman’s last drink, and yet when he walked down the lawn in Bagshott’s shoes he was carrying a very heavy object, that object being the body of Grumman. However, those details can wait for the time being. Of more immediate interest is the brother’s fate.”

  “Too
right!” agreed Bolt. “You have no idea even who they might be? What about this Sleeman?”

  “Sleeman may be in that, but Sleeman has not been away from the Chalet excepting for a few hours yesterday afternoon when he went for a walk. Let us imagine a tale of fiction with the bare facts in our possession. A party suspected that George—we’ll refer to Daniel O’Leary as George—killed Grumman and stole the pens. They kidnapped George in the city after he had left his brother—who, by the way, does not state what happened to the pens after they discovered the micro-film had been extracted from them. They find the pens on George, and they find that the secrets they contained have vanished. What had George done with the micro-films? George won’t talk. They apply pressure, and perhaps under pressure, George relates the adventure he had with Bisker and me. They say that is a tall one to put over. Who was the man he met that day in the city? George won’t tell. They apply more pressure. Still George won’t speak, won’t say anything which might lead his torturers to his brother. And so in the end they shoot him. I am inclined to believe that George died a hero.

  “Well, then, having killed the stubborn George, they will recall the story about his adventure with Bisker and me, and doubtless they will endeavour to check up on it. H’m! That might prove interesting.”

  “You’ll find it so if they apply to you their methods of—persuasion,” Bolt said slowly, with emphasis.

  For the first time Mason offered an observation.

  “Might not the people who collared George be friends of our pal Marcus?” he said. “Marcus did call at the Chalet to see Grumman. He knew Grumman.”

  Bolt waited for Bony to counter Mason’s suggestion.

  “It is quite likely, though we have no evidence. O’Leary in his statement makes no such suggestion, although he must have known that the man who killed Rice had called to see Grumman. However, neither of the brothers would know what we know about Marcus. Although without evidence, I am much inclined to the thought that Marcus is at the back of killing George.”