Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

“I only just caught sight of ’imas I was walking along ’ere on my way to a job. Look!”

He pointed into the gutter. Bisker stood quite still and stared downward into the gutter with eyes unusually large. First he saw, beneath lines of vivid green, a patch of scarlet. Then he saw, also beneath lines of vivid green, part of a man’s face. He bent his body forward, resting his hands upon his bent knees, and stared still harder.

“That’s one of our guests,” he said slowly. “A bloke named Grumman. Looks like ’e’sdead.”

“Too right!” supplemented Fred. “You take a closer bird’s-eye view of ’im.”

Bisker straightened himself and regarded Fred as though it had been suggested that he step off a cliff a hundred feet high. Then he knelt at the edge of the gutter and lowered himself down into it. With his arms, he parted the tangle of brambles and weeds above the figure of the man dressed in a grey dressing gown and with red leather slippers on his feet. Bisker could tell if a man was dead, having seen dead men. He rearranged the covering of vegetation over the body, and then regained the edge of the road.

Fred regarded Bisker with an expression of sternness in his watery eyes. Bisker looked up and was about to speak when, from above them, a voice said:

“What is going on down there?”

Both men stared guiltily and looked upwards to see a slight and well-dressed man standing on the lip of the road bank. Bisker said:

“Morning Mr. Bonaparte. Better come down an’ take a bird’s-eye view of a corpse we’ve found.”

“Did you say a corpse?” asked Mr. Bonaparte.

“That’s right,” affirmed Fred.

“Then I will join you.”

In less than ten seconds this guest at Wideview Chalet stood with Bisker and Fred on the edge of the road just above the body.

“Haveeither of you men been down there in the gutter?” asked Mr. Bonaparte.

“We both ’ave,” replied Bisker. “Fred ’ere ’e found ’imand brought me down from mework.”

“Ah-pity. You are quite sure he is dead?”

“Too right!”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Mr. Grumman,” answered Bisker.

“Mr. Grumman, eh! Oh! Bring me a stick about five feet in length.”

Fred found a branch on the lower side of the road and snapped off a stick of the required length. With its point, Mr. Bonaparte moved aside the intervening brambles so that he could see clearly the dead man’s face and the clothes he was wearing. Then with the stick he pushed and pulled the vegetation back to hide the body.

Bisker’s Unusual Morning

MISS JADE was taking breakfast in a corner of the dining room.

The dining room at Wideview Chalet was Miss Jade’s pride, for she had designed it with the purpose of making as much as possible of the magnificent view. Across the entire front were wide panes of glass so that guests whilst eating might admire one of the finest views in all the State of Victoria.

The maid who brought Miss Jade’s bacon and eggs said to her:

“Bisker wants to see you, marm.”

“Bisker wants to see me?” Miss Jade exclaimed. “Did you say that Bisker wants to see me?”

“Yes, marm,” replied the maid, adding pertly: “That is what I said, marm.”

“Tell Bisker that I am breakfasting.”

The girl departed silently over the thick pile. Miss Jade’s finely pencilled brows drew a fraction closer together. There appeared between them two short vertical lines, lines which had caused MissJade a good deal of concern, and which she could vanquish only by keeping her brows raised. She heard the maid’s voice from beyond the dining room’s well-oiled swing doors, and almost choked at the sight of Bisker himself advancing towards her table.

“Bisker!”Miss Jade almost shouted.

Bisker continued to advance, to advance in defiance of Miss Jade’s terrible eyes which ordinarily would have petrified him into immobility. He was smiling faintly, a softly sardonic smile, and when he arrived at her table twiddling his old felt hat in his grubby hands, he said:

“Youwas asking after Mr. Grumman, marm.”

“How dare you come here, Bisker!” cried Miss Jade.

“I came to give you a bit of news about Mr. Grumman, marm,” Bisker persisted, the sardonic smile lingering in his eyes. “It isn’t thesorta news I thought you’d want the guests to know just yet.”

Bisker waited. He had news to impart and it was not going to lose anything in the telling. Miss Jade regarded him icily. To her this was a new Bisker.

“Well what have you to say to me about Mr. Grumman?” she asked.

“He’s fell asleep, marm, that’s what ’e’sdone.”

“Fallen asleep! Why he’s not in his room. He’s still out.”

“Yes, marm-out for keeps-out in the ditch the other side of the front fence. He’s dead.”

“He’s d-” began Miss Jade in a high loud voice. Then she checked herself. Pushing back her chair, she stood up and stared down upon the rotund Bisker. Softly, she asked:

“Did you say Mr. Grumman is dead, Bisker?”

Bisker nodded.

Now Miss Jade was a woman of character. She had begun in a small suburban boarding-house, and worked through a succession of larger boarding-houses to small guest houses until she became the proprietress of Wideview Chalet on Mount Chalmers. She was not one to give way to panic. The swinging doors were not so far removed that the maid on the other side could not hear what was being said.

“Come with me to the office, Bisker.”

Bisker ambled after her. When within the office, she ordered a young and efficient-looking girl to take her breakfast, and then she waited for ten seconds before closing the door and saying to Bisker:

“Now, Bisker.”

Bisker told how he had observed a working man coming up from the wicket gate, how he had “rushed” down to stop him and to turn himout, and how he had been led to observe the body of Mr. Grumman.

“You are quite sure that the man is dead?” questioned Miss Jade.

“In the last war I seen lots of dead men,” said Bisker. “Mr. Grumman is dead all right. His body is stiff and as cold as me nose.”

“Did he fall over the road bank, do you think?”

“Itdon’t look like it by the way he’s lying,” replied Bisker, adding cheerfully: “Course he might ’ave. Iain’t saying as how he didn’t just walk off the bank in his sleep, sort of. Any’ow, he’s dead, and we can’t just plant himsomewheres in the garden.”

Miss Jade’s brows rose much higher than was necessary to erase those vertical lines between her brows. When she spoke again her voice was cold.

“Don’t be foolish, Bisker. Be quiet, I’ll ring the police.”

“That’s what Mr. Bonaparte said, marm,” Bisker answered.

“Mr. Bonaparte!”

“Yes, marm. Mr. Bonaparte came to the edge of the bank just as I had examined the body. He’s having a look round, sorta. Sent me along to tell you and to ask you to ring for the police and the doctor.”

“The doctor! But you said that Mr. Grumman is dead.”

Bisker looked patiently at his employer.

“That’s so, marm. But the law says that only a doctor can prove that a man’s dead.”

It gave Bisker satisfaction to observe that Miss Jade was thrown off her balance, that for once she was a prey to her emotions. He stood calmly watching her as with fluttering hands she lifted the telephone and asked the operator to connect her with the Police Station. Whilst waiting she looked up at Bisker, and he was astounded to see in her eyes a look of appeal. The crisis found the man.

“You had better let me do thetalkin ’,” he suggested.

“Please, Bisker.”

Miss Jade gladly surrendered the instrument, and sat down in the secretary’s chair. Then Bisker spoke.