Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

He wondered, too, just how Grumman had met his end. Bony himself was to a degree associated with the dead man during the last evening of his life. At half-past six, he had been seated with Grumman at dinner, at the same table with four other guests, two men and their wives. It was a circular table, and Grumman occupied the chair opposite the detective.

The German was raw-boned and lean. He had light blue eyes and a rat-trap of a mouth. His grizzled hair was worn fairly long, obviously, to Bony, as a partial disguise. With his hair cropped close, and with a monocle in his eye, he would have looked just what he was-a Prussian. He spoke like a German who had lived in the U.S.A. for many years, and to Bony’s ears the North American accent was emphatic, so much so that had he not been aware of Grumman’s origin, he would not have detected the slightest faults due to the acquirement of English as spoken by educated Americans.

Grumman had appeared to be quite free in the company at that table. He talked interestedly of America and of cities in South America. There was no marked reserve in his demeanour; in fact, he was just one of the well-educated, travelled East-coast Americans who call in at Australia on a round-the-world rest-cruise.

After dinner, the five people who had dined with Bony drifted to the lounge where coffee was served and where smoking was permitted by Miss Jade. When Bony left the lounge at half-past seven to take a stroll, Grumman was talking with two male guests. When he again entered the lounge at about a quarter past eight, the two male guests and Grumman were still occupying the same chairs.

Grumman remained with those two guests until five minutes after ten when hearose, saying in Bony’s hearing that he would take a sharp walk before going to bed. He left the lounge by the door opening into the short passage leading to the reception hall and the main entrance. He left without hat or coat for, to have obtained them from his room, he would have left the lounge by another door.

A little before a quarter to eleven, Grumman came back through the same door by which he had left, and the flush on his face indicated a sharp walk in the keen air. An elderly man who had been reading a novel invited him to take a drink, and Grumman ordered whisky. After returning the hospitality, he went off to his room, the time then being a few minutes to eleven.

Grumman’s room was the best at Wideview Chalet. It was lighted by a pair offrench windows opening on to the front veranda. Bony’s room was less expensive, having only an ordinary window facing the top side of the house and the road down which Constable Rice had driven his car.

The door locks were the same, and the key to Bony’s door fitted the lock on Grumman’s door. He had established that fact just before leaving for his walk the evening before. He was also able to establish at the same time the fact that Grumman did not lock his room when he left it during the day or evening.

Those who had killed him were certainly ruthless. How had they achieved their purpose in poisoning the man? The poison had most certainly not been in the drinks served by George in the lounge. He must have received it in his room, after he had undressed and slipped on a dressing gown over his pyjamas. He had taken two whiskies in the lounge, the first at the other guest’s expense, the second at his own. The other guest had suggested a third drink, but Grumman had declined, and therefore, it would be improbable that Grumman would take another drink from a private store after undressing. Had he, before getting into bed, drunk water from the carafe, water containing cyanide? Hardly! For one thing he would not be thirsty, and for another, a whisky drinker would not take water-unless it was to swallow a medicinal tablet.

He wondered whether that “idea” had occurred to Snook or Mason, and whether the contents, if any, of the carafe had been taken for analysis.

He wondered, too, where the man Marcus came into the picture. A dope peddler, even in the international trading scale, would have no business or social connection with such a man as Grumman. He might have discovered Grumman’s identity and intended to practise a little blackmail. One thing, however, was certain. Marcus was not responsible for Grumman’s death and the theft of Grumman’s effects.

He paused in his stroll to look down upon Wideview Chalet lying two hundred feet below the narrow lane he was following. Two hatless men and a woman wearing a scarlet kerchief over her hair were coming leisurely up the path from the wicket gate. There were two cars parked on the open space before the main entrance to the house, and even as Bony watched several men came out to the cars. Another came with Bisker from the direction of Bisker’s hut.

All except the handy-man got into the cars which were then driven down the drive to the highway, and Bony smiled a little tight-lipped smile, for they were newspaper men. Had they seen him it was probable that one at least would have known his profession and blazoned it to the world.

He was about to continue down the lane which would take him to the upper road and the Chalet, when he observed Bisker turn from watching the departing cars and cross to one of the ornamental shrubs growing on either side of the front doorway. There he paused, looking first through the open door into the reception hall and then towards the garages. With a swift movement, he thrust forward his right hand, apparently to press down the earth in the tub, and with movement equally quick, he drew back that hand, again gazed furtively all round, and abruptly walked round the corner of the building to enter a rear door opposite the wood-stack.

“Yet another little mystery,” murmured Bony, delightedly.“Now what, about that tub, interests Bisker? Either he picked up something on the surface of the earth in the tub, a something I could not see, or he wanted to take something and became too frightened that someone in the reception hall or about the garages might observe him. I must get to know Bisker a little more intimately. Well, here’s me for a wash and dinner. I’m hungry. Must be the air.”

No one but Bisker knew how drywas Bisker. He dared not “put it on” Miss Jade for a snifter. He dared not ask George to get him a drink for which he would have to pay, in case either George or Miss Jade might recall the full bottle of whisky taken to the office with the alleged purpose of reviving Miss Jade. And it was still too early to “sneak” off to the hotel a mile down the road, for dinner had not started and he had dishes to wash. Anyway, why walk a full mile down to the hotel when there was a bottle three parts filled with whisky right there under his hands? He had been a fool to have attempted to retrieve it in daylight. Someone might have seen him.

Reluctantly, Bisker dragged himself away from the tub and ambled in his distinctive gait round to the scullery door. Deciding he would have to wait until he had “cleaned up” after dinner, he planned how he might reduce the after-dinner chores by doing as much before dinner as was possible. In the scullery he found the beginning of the evening’s labours awaiting him, and filling a trough with hot water, he fell to reducing the stack of baking trays and utensils used that late afternoon. When the house gong was struck he was that much forward.

The evening was well advanced when again he left the house, and immediately he was assailed by the temptation to retrieve his bottle of whisky. This was a favourable opportunity. The guests would be going to the dining room, the secretary would be “titivating” herself in her room, and Miss Jade would be hovering about the servers and the kitchen.

Despite the dusk, Bisker chipped at his tobacco plug and loaded his pipe, whilst his eyes searched the neighbourhood for possible enemies. Nothing stirred, not even a cat. He paused casually to strike a match and light his pipe. Still there was no sign of any living thing. Gradually, he worked his way round to the shrub tub, and witha nonchalance he did not feel, he seated himself on the edge of the tub, his body directly above the coveted bottle.