Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

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

Miss Philps was about to say that it was not her office, but the smiling eyes brushed that assertion from her mind. It had been a difficult afternoon for her, an aftermath of murder crowded with grim-faced, tight-lipped policemen, and hence her nerves were not restful and her mind was unsettled. She said:

“Won’t you sit down? Miss Jade will not be long, I’m sure.”

“Thank you. I hope I am not disturbing you.”

“No of course not.”Miss Philps smiled for the first time. “You see, I am used to being interrupted in my work. How do you like Mount Chalmers?”

“Very much. It’s the most beautiful place in Australia, and I have yet to walk down into the fern gullies which, I am told, have a beauty all of their own. So different, you know, from my own part of the country. There, it is all open and flat and sun-glary and hot.”

Bony was beginning to describe Western Queensland when Miss Jade came in with a bowl of warm water and a large cardboard box bearing a red cross on the cover.

“I’d just love to go out into the real outback,” she said, brightly. “I’ve never been farther out than Mildura. You must love it, Mr. Bonaparte.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” admitted Bony. “There’s plenty of space to move about in, and one hasn’t to wear dinner clothes and a starched collar and be extra polite, and all that kind of thing.”

“Don’t you like being polite?” asked Miss Jade, pouring a few drops of antiseptic into the bowl.

“Perhaps the word was not quite the one for me to use,” he countered. “Formal would have been better. You see, Miss Jade, were we outback-er-after an acquaintance of four days you would be calling me Bony and I would be addressing you by your Christian name.”

Miss Jade advanced to him with cotton wool saturated with the antiseptic. She laughed softly:

“If anyone on Mount Chalmers were to hear me calling you Bony, and you calling me Eleanor, it would immediately go around that we were lovers,” she said, half seriously. “One has to be so careful, you know, in a place like this. Now, this might sting just a tiny bit.”

“Pleasure is often born of pain,” murmured Bony. “No pain, no expert administration by you, Miss Jade. When my man friend gave me the box of salve, he said, ‘Here, shove it on.’ ”

“It’s what a man would say.” The antiseptic did notsting, neither did the ointment which Miss Jade applied with the tip of a little finger. The ointment at once soothed a wound which was beginning to ache, and then with gauze and a narrow strip of plaster Miss Jade completed the operation and requested Bony to look at it in a wall mirror, saying:

“It won’t make you unsightly at dinner, Mr. Bonaparte, and it will keep the air from the cut and heal it more quickly.”

He turned to see her withdraw her fingertips from the bowl of antiseptic, and begin to dry them on a towel.

“I thank you,” he said gravely. “I look, and feel, quite presentable. Next week, should I go off in a friend’s car, I’ll arrange to gash the opposite cheek. A cigarette?”

Miss Jade glanced at the office clock, and then accepted. It barely reached her lips before the lighter was held by a brown hand in service, and above the tiny flame she gazed into the blue eyes whimsically regarding her. During that flash of time she decided she would like to call him Bony.

No proprietor of a guest house is dull in psychology. Miss Jade was aware that the least travelled people were the most difficult with whom to deal, and that the loud-voiced people were those acutely suffering from an inferiority complex. All her guests at Wideview Chalet were in comfortable circumstances, and her high tariff secured a high degree of selectivity.

The soft and clear enunciation of this outback man both charmed and mystified her, mystified her because she had thought that people who lived far beyond the railways were hoarse and coarse. She sensed the mental power behind the wide, low forehead, the power which in a rare flash became visible, and after her cigarette was alight, she turned to say something to Miss Philps that Bonaparte might not read her mind.

“I hope that you are quite happy in your dining companions, Mr. Bonaparte. I am asking Mr. Sleeman to sit at your table, and also two guests who arrived today, a Mr. Downes and a Mr. Lee.” Swiftly Miss Jade smiled. “There will be no ladies at your table. Mr. and Mrs. Watkins especially requested to be given a table tothemselves.”

“I shall find that arrangement entirely satisfactory,” Bony agreed, adding in his grand manner: “Madam, there is but one lady in this house who interests me.”

To which Miss Jade countered, really charmed:

“I am glad there is only one gentleman from Queensland here at the same time.”

“I find that extremely gratifying, Miss Jade. And thank you for attending to my slight injury. Aurevoir!”

Miss Jade herself arranged the seating at Bony’s table and introduced the new guests to Bony and Mr. Sleeman and another man who had been staying at the Chalet for several weeks, a Mr. Raymond Leslie.

Leslie was an artist who knew every inch of Mount Chalmers and much of the mountains beyond the valley. He appeared to find pleasure in occupying the chair so recently occupied by Mr. Grumman, and he lost little time in announcing that fact to the two new guests at this table, Mr. Lee and Mr. Downes, eulogizing Grumman’s brusque manner of speech and his forceful descriptive power. He appeared to think little of the reticent Bonaparte, and still less of the even more reticent Mr. Sleeman. Bony covertly watched the two new guests, of whom Lee appeared the more transparent. When this large and weather-beaten man stated that he owned “a small place in the Riverina,” it was evident that he spoke the truth. He was unmistakably a pastoralist.

Downes was slight with hair turning grey, although he did not appear to be beyond forty. It was difficult to guess his profession and he showed no inclination to announce it. His moustache was short and smooth and dark, there were tiny pockets under his dark eyes, and his hands were long-fingered and white. Seated on Bony’s left, he was content to listen to Raymond Leslie talking about Mr. Grumman, and complaining of the treatment he had received from the detectives, who suspected everyone.

On Bony’s right sat Mr. Sleeman who, Bony had been informed, was the representative of an English firm of engineers. He was quiet-spoken, interesting, and possessed of a little weakness during the evenings, a weakness in which George took a most prominent part.

“Seem to be settling down again, don’t we?” he murmured to Bony beneath the rapid-fire of Raymond Leslie’s talk. “Did you clear out last night to get away from the atmosphere?”

“Hardly that,” replied Bony. “I was down the road and by chance saw some friends of mine in a car. Hadn’t seen them for a couple of years. They took me to their home near the city for the evening.”

“Was that where the war was?” Sleeman asked, his eyes glinting.

“Oh, no! It was quite peaceful down there. I was getting out of the confounded car. My friend who was driving had switched off the dash lights and my cheek came in violent contact with a projection from the windscreen. Only five guests here last night?”

“That’s all. Elder left this morning. The place is better to live innow, more peaceful now those chattering, screaming women have gone.”

The girl, Alice, waited at table. Bony observed her thoroughly for the first time. She was tall, vivacious and efficient. Too young, he thought, to have had any direct part in the murder of Grumman, but not too young to have gone through his own kit whilst he was away. In her statement to the police, she had said that she was a native of Barnsdale, single, and had been employed by Miss Jade for four months. Her duties had included the cleaning of Grumman’s room, and she had every morning emptied the water carafe, washed it and re-filled it. In the mornings she had noticed that Grumman had used about half the water contents. Grumman had kept a bottle of tablets on his dressing table, but just what they were she did not know.