Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

“A win?”

“Yes. A win on an ’orse. Fred’s pretty good atpickin ’ ’em. And then sometimes I ’as a win from a guest. Sometimes ’alfa quid. On two times I’ve been ’andeda full quid tip.”

“Oh!” Bony rolled and lit a cigarette. Then: “Did George ask you about Grumman’s luggage?”

Bisker brightened. “Yes,” he replied, “I told ’imI never seen any of it shifted by the police. Course it could ’avebeen done without me seeing. I wasn’t outside the main entrance all the time. What’s the strength of that?”

“Nothing very much, Bisker. The subject came up at dinner. One of the guests said that he happened to see into the room occupied by Grumman and saw thatall his luggage had gone, and another guest said the police couldn’t have taken it because he saw all the cars leave. Then Miss Jade said she knew nothing about it. Just a little argument, that was all. When you took Grumman’s cleaned shoes to his bedroom door yesterday morning, about what time was that?”

“About quarter to seven.”

“You saw no light beneath his door?”

“No.”

“There was nothing unusual about Grumman’s bedroom door?”

“Didn’t notice, Mr. Bonaparte.”

“Nothing unusual about his shoes that morning?”

“Theywas a bit wet, I remember.” Bisker’s weathered face expanded into a grin. “Yes, I remember that,” he continued, chuckling. “Theywas the only wet pair that morning for me to clean, the only pair bar one other pair.”

“Indeed!” Bony said encouragingly, as Bisker halted before further explanation.

“Yes, that other pair belonged to the old cat,” Bisker proceeded. “Isays tomeself, Hoh! Hoh! Theblinkin ’ foreign German was out walking in the grass last night, and the old catmusta been outwalkin ’ in the wet grass, too. A bit of love, Isays. Looks like it, didn’t it?”

Bony smiled. “I’m assuming,” he said, “that you are referring to Miss Jade. The evening before last was dry and frosty. I was out for a walk after dinner, but I kept to road and paths. My shoes were not wet.”

“That’s right. Your shoes weren’t wet at all. No one else’s was either, bar them two.”

“Have you ever noticed Miss Jade returning to the house very late at night before last night?”

Bisker shook his head.

“H’m!” murmured Bony.“Interesting. Take particular note of Miss Jade’s shoes tomorrow morning. Note if they are the same shoes that you cleaned this morning.”

“All right. D’youthinkMiss Jade was in at Grumman’s murder?”

“Bisker, don’t be a fool,” Bony said, sharply. “If you are to continue to be an offsider to me, you’ll never ask such a stupid question again, or ask any questions. You’ll just stay silent about everything, and do just what I ask you to do, and when I ask it. Clear?”

Bisker nodded.

“Good!” Bony said briskly. “Now I want you to do a job for me. I suppose you know every room and cupboard in the house?”

“That’s so, Mr. Bonaparte.”

“Well, d’youthink you could draw a plan of the inside of the house, showing every room and cupboard and store-room?”

“Yes, I reckon I could.”

“Excellent. I’ve brought paper and pencils with me. You do it now. Take your time, and if you make a bloomer, begin again. There is plenty of paper.”

Bisker fell to work, his pipe forgotten, the end of the pencils being chewed to splinters one after the other. Bony sat silently watching him. It was raining again, pattering on the iron roof low above their heads.

An Item of Gossip

FOUR DAYS passed and Bony gained precisely nothing other than a pound or two in weight. It seemed thatneither did the police gain anything during those four days, for on the fifth day when Bony visited Superintendent Bolt at Headquarters he was told that nothing was known of the whereabouts of Marcus, and that Grumman’s luggage had not been traced.

“Our loved friend will have got out of the State by this time,” growled Bolt. “Probably travelled quite openly by air or rail, looking like anything but Alexander Croft, alias this and that.”

“Mind if I have another glance through his record?” asked Bony.

“Of course not. Want to look for anything special?”

“Yes. I’d like to examine your pictures of him. Kirby, you know, Colonel Blythe’s assistant, suggested that Scotland Yard might have photographs of Croft, and the Colonel cabled to find out. The London crowd replied that they had photos of Marcus, and were air-mailing copies.”

Bony fell to tapping his teeth with the pencil he had used to write a memo. Then:

“When I was last here I saw three pictures of Marcus. They were taken eleven years ago, I understand, when Marcus was imprisoned for manslaughter. What Scotland Yard pinned to him, I don’t know, and that is of small importance to us compared with the fact that they also have photographs of him. Now, with their photographs added to those we have here, do you think your experts could build with reasonable accuracy a mould from which a cast could be produced of the head of Marcus?”

“They could do that all right, but with what degree of accuracy, I don’t know,” replied Bolt. “Why do you suggest it?”

“Well, you see a mancan disguise his features so effectively as to pass unrecognised by his own wife, or the cleverest policemen, but even friend Marcus would not think to disguise the shape of his head. Profile pictures do give the shape of the head, and I remember that you have one of therear of Marcus’s head, but a near-exact of his head in plaster ofparis would enable us to memorise his head-shape, and from that someone might get under the very best disguise.”

“H’m!” Bolt regarded Bony with his piercing small brown eyes.“Might be worth doing. Wish I had your confidence that Marcus is still in the State. We don’t think so now. In the first place, there was sufficient time for him to get past the road-blocks before they were fixed, and in the second place, his mastery of disguise has proved such a winner not only in Australia but in Europe and in America.”

Bolt, watching Bony roll a cigarette, decided that he had never seen a man manufacture worse. He had many crowded hoursahead, but notwithstanding, he patiently waited for his visitor and colleague to finish making the cigarette and light it. Aware of Bony’s impatience of regulations and legalities, an impatience with which he was securely sympathetic, he was able to appreciate Bony’s peculiar gifts and to value them as an addition to the orthodox and modern methods of crime detection. The huge Superintendent was, as he had always been, anxious to learn.

“There is something else which a man forgets to disguise,” Bony said, softly blowing smoke in a spear over the conical top of Bolt’s cranium. “The something else is his feet and the way he walks. No two men walk alike, and because I am able to read man-tracks as easily as you read a report, I could teach others to read. In the long ago, I put a suggestion to my Chief that in addition to recording a man’s fingerprints, a record should be made of his footprints. I suggested that all convicted persons, and, in some cases, suspected persons, should be made to walk in boots or shoes over a new cement block, and then made to walk over that block in their bare feet. The cement should bear the imprints of at least six steps, and the impressions would then be photographed for the record. The graduate from my school of tracking would be able not only to follow tracks unobserved by the ordinary detective, but also he would be able to recognise the tracks made by any person whose tracks had been recorded. If I had ever observed the tracks of friend Marcus, I would recognise them now and anywhere, so that disguise would be ineffective to me.”