Arthur Upfield - The Devil_s Steps

Mason leaned back in his chair and regarded Bony with raised brows.

“Well, that’s strange. We live and learn, don’t we?” he said slowly.

“We are always learning, Mason, those of us who are intelligent. There is something else I want done. I am not quite satisfied with what Bolt has concerning Miss Jade and the steward, George. Without doubt the information aboutthemselves given to you people will have been checked over, but I suggest a re-check. Then there are two guests who interest me. One is an artist fellow named Leslie. He’s been living up here for some time, and he knows the district in and out. Get me all you are able about him, in addition to that obtained from him the day Grumman’s body was found. The day following Grumman’s murder four new guests arrived at the Chalet. Note their names, please.” Mason did so at Bony’s dictation. “Of these four, Downes appears to be the least frank abouthimself. Lee may bemore clever than he appears. The Watkins couple talk ever-lastingly about their travels, but that weakness may be assumed. Oh, by the way! Give me an envelope.”

From his pocket Bony took the quantity of dead grass taken from Miss Jade’s lawn and placed it in the envelope provided by Mason.

“The curator might like to examine this grass, as it was taken from one of the boot-marks,” he explained. “Tell the Super I’d like him to send the bust of Marcus’s head up here for me to see. Also tell him that I am thoroughly enjoying the restful holiday and do not wish to be disturbed. Can I use your telephone?”

“Certainly.”

Bony called for Windsor 0101. He had to wait three minutes before contacting Colonel Blythe. Then Mason heard him say:

“Evening, Colonel! This is Mr. Boniski Spiffoski speaking… Yes, the Russian-iskiinvestigatoriski… Didn’t you know?… I beg your pardon!… Oh! Colonel Spendor is annoyed about something-especially about me… Yes. You tell him I’ll be back one day soon. I am having a wonderful holiday. I thought you’d like to know that and to hear my sweet voice. Now please don’t worry about Colonel Spendor… Yes, I know… You apply to your wife. She knows how to calm down the old boy… A plane!… But I am not returning to Brisbane by plane… No, I am going back via Wanaaring… Yes, by car. I’m going to have a month on the beer with a friend of mine-I hope… Good night!”

Fungi and Swordfish

THE FOLLOWING DAY, being Sunday, the traffic on the highway was heavy all the morning, and particularly so after two o’clock in the afternoon. It was a day which was to be remembered by Bony for a long time.

Firstly, a frost fell and whitened all the open places. Miss Jade’s lawn was whitened but not the shrubs growing here and there on it and this latter fact recalled to Bony’s mind that Bisker had said that the shrubs were covered with frost on the early morning when Grumman’s body had been found. Since that morning there had been no frosts.

The valley was hidden beneath a thick, still fog, a fog declared later by the weather man as being at least a thousand feet in depth. When Bony stepped out upon the veranda of Wideview Chalet, the sun was well above the range of distant mountains, and the scene held him spell-bound.

Over the valley floor the fog-clouds were massed into an unbroken pseudo ice-pack. Above the ice, far to the north-west, was an island, the top of Mount Macedon, Eastward of it, jutting in to the ice-pack, lay a giant’s finger joined to a long arm of Mount St. Leonard. From Mount St. Leonard, the range swept in a great arc round to the Baw-Baws, a blue coast beneath a low-angled sun which had painted out all its minor features with a broad brush of indigo. The ice field appeared to come within a stone-toss of Miss Jade’s front fence. Its surface was varied in shape but uniform in its brilliant white. Far away to the south there sailed as though upon its surface huge icebergs which accepted the light of the sun in a glory of shimmering daffodil-yellow. Over upon the far coast the ice-pack was curled like curling white waves about to break upon the rock-armoured land. A square mile of it lay as flat as damask cloth. Yet another square mile of it was rumpled like the train of a bridal dress.

Where Bony stood the sunlight was warm. No current of air disturbed one leaf of the nearby trees. As though from the sky above, not from beneath the ice-flow, the hoot of a train cried its pitiful blindness.

Two hours later, the southern bergs were melting as though they floated in a sea of warm milk, and the waves curling upon the coast of the distant mountains had become gigantic. Seeming vast upheavals were tossing the ice-flow into hillocks andminiature mountains, and the flow itself was sliding past the Chalet, sliding away over the City of Melbourne and into the Bay. There came a wind which lifted stupendous masses of ice into towering ramparts, and which dug enormous and dreadful chasms into an ink-black darkness.

Eventually the valley, fields and paddocks and the forest areas came up out of the chasms to meet the sun andlie spread before Bony’s enchanted eyes.

The only jarring note was the voice of Mrs. Watkins constantly repeating the phrase: “Oh, how lovely!”

The second event which made this a memorable day for Bonaparte occurred in the afternoon when, having decided he would take a walk up the highway, he arrived outside the rear portion of the garden belonging to Clarence B. Bagshott. This rear portion was not bounded by a hedge, and just over the fence the mystery-story writer himself was trenching a plot of ground.

Bony leaned against an iron fence post and rested his arms along the topmost barbed wire. A little to the left was the gateway to Bagshott’s garage. Before him, and beyond Bagshott, were the two wireless masts, the subject of the conjecture that the owner had been in touch with Japan. Then Bagshott plunged his spade into the firm earth and stooped to poke at something with a stick, and this action so aroused the curiosity of the watching Bonaparte that he called out:

“What have you found?”

Bagshott turned towards Bony.

“Hop over the fence and come and see,” he shouted.

It was not an easy fence to “hop over,” but Bony managed it without damage to his clothes and joined Bagshott, to see him turning over with the stick what appeared to be an undersized soft-shelled egg.

“Ever seen one of these before?” the author asked without looking up.

“No. What is it?”

“The naturalist gentry call it theClathrus Gracilis, but ordinary people name it the net fungus. When this thing, looking like a small egg, ‘hatches’ or ruptures there is expelled a net which unravels large enough to cover a tennis ball and at the same time disperses its spores. I’ve never seen one ‘hatching,’ but I’m hoping. I found a net a few minutes ago. Let’s try and find it. Over here.”

Bagshott strode across his land, followed by the smaller man whose interest in life included all things. Bony noted in a detached manner how Bagshott lifted his feet in the over-large shoes he was wearing. They were old shoes from which the gloss had long since been removed by the rough usage they had undergone. However, the subjects of tracks and homicide were now being swiftly swept into a mental cupboard to give room for this new interest which was claiming both their minds.

“Ah-here it is!”

Bagshott halted and stooped and Bony stooped with him. He saw a delicate net-like object which would cover a tennis ball. It was springy and stained with dull browns and a dull green. No strand of the net was broken.

“I understand that there are considerably over fifty thousand species of fungi,” remarked Bony, taking up the specimen in his hands. “I’ve never seen this kind before. Rather wonderful, isn’t it?”